Rant #1,787: I Got Dem Old Dental Blues Again

I must be under some black cloud right now, because everything I do and everything that I am involved with seems to be so askew now.

Yes, I do feel my life is in The Twilight Zone at this point.

Not only is my job in jeopardy, but my teeth appear to be, too.

Yes, the saga of my teeth goes on and on and on, and without any light at the end of the tunnel.

Yesterday, I had a dental appointment, the penultimate dental appointment to finally end my nightmare with my teeth and with this dentist.

I was supposed to get the permanent crown put on my teeth, and when that was completed, wash my hands completely of my current dentist, and move on to another one to take care of my dental work in the future.

Just to review, I went around the world with an impacted wisdom tooth that needed to come out, I had a major infection in my mouth, and this dentist never saw anything, even when I told him that my teeth were bothering me. He saw nothing, even with X-rays.

I had to go to a periodontist and then a dental surgeon to find out exactly what was wrong with my teeth.

And this episode was the final straw in several years of pure torture with this dentist, and I was going to cut the chord yesterday.

I left work early, went to his office, and they took me in immediately. I thought this was a good sign, but since he never takes patients immediately, this should have been a big red flag for me, an omen of things to come.

I sat down in the chair, got all gussied up for my new crown, and the dentist looks in my mouth, and says to me, "Do you have the temporary crown I put in your mouth?"

I acted as if I didn't hear him, and after a brief pause, I said, "What?"

He repeated, and I replied that I did not have the crown.

"Well, it isn't in your mouth."

So, for more than a month, I have been surviving with absolutely no protection in my mouth, because his temporary crown came off the tooth. I didn't know that this happened, according to him, because I had root canal on that tooth.

Funny, without any of his appliances in my mouth, my teeth felt as good as they have in six months.

Hmmmm ... .

Well, anyway, he goes to get the crown. He gets it, and promptly drops it on the floor. He briefly can't find it, then locates it, washes it off, and we are ready to go.

He puts the crown in my mouth, and promptly takes it out.

He then takes what I later figured out was an impression of my mouth.

This takes a few minutes, and then he tells me that he doesn't like how the crown was sitting in my mouth, so he took it out, and that I would have to come back at a later time to get a new crown put in.

I get up from the chair in total bewilderment, and the dentist walks away as if I would be OK with this.

I caught up with him, and asked him, "So what is in my mouth now, a temporary crown?"

He promptly tells me, "You have nothing in your mouth," and goes about his business as if nothing had happened, which in fact, was what happened.

Nothing.

I had to make another appointment, and since the dentist was going to be off (on vacation, that is, he is already "off," if you know what I mean), I now have to wait until the middle of December to get this done, about three weeks.

Can you believe this?

I know that I can't.

So, I could have gone to a proctologist for my teeth, and I would have received the exact same result.

I can't win right now.

The black cloud surrounds me, and I can't get out from under it.

Yes, I am going to say it again ...

Woe is me.

And again ...

Woe is me.

And again ...

Woe is me. ...