To Tell the Tooth

[stoutfellow]

Grump. Four trips to the dentist in a little over a month strikes me as a bit excessive. There's one more in the offing, too.

On the other hand, considering that it had been eight or ten years since my last trip, I suppose I got off lightly. Only three teeth needed care: one root canal, one crown, and one filling replacement. Still...

After spending two weeks not chewing on the right side, now I have to spend two not chewing on the left. It took a couple of hours for the numbness to wear off this morning. When it did, I made myself a sandwich, and couldn't open my mouth wide enough to take a bite. (No, it wasn't a Dagwood; just two slices of bread, a thin slice of Canadian bacon, and a slice of cheese. And I did manage to bite it on a second try.)

I haven't felt like doing anything all day. I'm blaming it on the dentist.

(BTW, one of the old meanings of the word "tell" is "count", as in "bank teller". It's cognate to the German word "Zahl", "number". The t/z alternation is fairly common - cf. "ten"/"zehn", "two"/"zwei", and "timber"/"Zimmer"; it's part of the "High German consonant shift".)

Comments

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

Good thing you weather root canals well, it seems like! Hope this time advil takes care of the problem, like last time.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Just to be clear, this isn't another root canal; I'm counting all the work that's been (or is being) done since the toothache forced me to go - one root canal (done), one crown (in progress), and one filling repair (yet to come).