This is for all the little tooth pulp,
trying to keep the teeth alive...
Don't give up until someone,
Scrapes you out with a,
Giant silver thing from on high...
Yes, I got my perfectly healthy tooth pulp scraped out yesterday, a sacrificial killing known as a root canal. They were fast, efficient, and as pleasant as they could be under the circumstances, but still, now my perfectly healthy tooth pulp is dead. I feel a lot of pride or shame about my body depending on it's health. It's like owning a house plant and watching it flourish, "Yes," you can think to yourself, "I am a good caretaker of the living thing. uga uga." (If cave dwellers owned plants.)
So, I cried at the dentist's office when she told me I needed a root canal and that they would have to drill off part of the bone when they gave me a crown. She thought it was because I was nervous, but the crying was more like angry crying; the anger of helplessness and frustration. They said the only option was a root canal. I felt somewhat vindicated when they got inside the tooth and found that all the pulp was healthy and alive. (The aliveness of the nerves is why I was in pain.) So I want to thank my tooth pulp for not getting inflamed under the worst of circumstances, and for keeping my nerves healthy and alive. This is a sad farewell to the tooth pulp I could not save.
I think in the future, instead of killing a tooth to save it, (ie a root canal) they will figure out ways to save the tooth by regenerating it, especially if all the tooth pulp is healthy. I have had three root canals, and was feeling like a failure as I drove home from the endodontist. (That's a lot of dead house plants.) But then I thought, "I could think of it as three dead teeth, or 29 live teeth!" So, I have made a committment to having the best dental health possible from now on. I'm doing it for the tooth pulp.
