An Easter weekend filled with dental dramas!

Regular readers may know how I have odontophobia – a major fear of going to the dentist, avoiding visits at all costs. However, due to an infected, impacted wisdom tooth, which was shifting my other teeth and causing me intolerable agony, following several doses of antibiotics to clear up the contamination, I had no choice but to give in to my lovely dentist Dr Eleanor Keaveney’s request to have it removed by an oral surgeon.

Due to the level of damage to my tooth, extracting it in the normal manner proved impossible. Yep, it’s safe to say that wisdom teeth are not only a pain in the face, neck, shoulders and head, they’re also (as I found out due to the cost associated with their removal) a pain in the pocket! But hey, having been surgically removed by a procedure performed by a wonderful oral surgeon in Tipperary (recommended by Dr Keaveney – thank you Eleanor), it’s now out and sitting in a little pill bottle on my dressing table!

However, that wasn’t the end of the drama. Let me explain: even though he-who-mindsme-like-a-baby was, er, minding me like a baby following my ‘procedure’ and not allowing me to lift so much as a finger, I, in my panicked state, managed to fizz everything up.

When leaving my Tipperary appointment, I’m told that due to the combined effects of relief and the anaesthetic, I was ‘high as a kite’, spewing out a stream of non-stop, nonsensical words in a sing-songy voice only dogs could hear. So you could say all went well and I didn’t feel a thing!

However, due to me being a drama queen worthy of a Tony Award, I later experienced what I’m calling my ‘post-traumatic, dental stress disorder’ (PTDSD), and that night I actually ground my teeth so hard in my sleep, I damaged one of them, rendering me in need of emergency treatment.

Thank God for Eleanor and her lovely staff.

A panicked, tearful phone call first thing Saturday morning had me in her chair that afternoon, and in her no-nonsense manner, I was prepped and numbed and my damaged tooth (on the opposite side of the surgical-extraction site) was expertly filled.

It’s safe to say our Easter weekend didn’t go the way we’d planned. Mind you, hubby’s delighted my wisdom tooth is finally out and says he’s looking forward to the day when I no longer have a reason to complain. Let me know how that works out for you darling!

As for Dr Eleanor, thank you so much for your patience and your professionalism.