The Dentist and My First Dead Tooth

Today I visited the dentist for...about the eighth time in 4 months. To be fair it was the first time in 3 months but the month previous to that was a hectic one. Nobody should be able to banter with their dentist and remember last time you met. This is because most dentist's advise a 6 month check-up. Well, my dentist knows me now. To the extent where he looked pleased to see me when I walked in and asked how I was since a couple of months ago. He never used to remember me and that's the way it should be. But now I swear we are only a few more meetings away from going out for a drink.

This, I think, is how cancer patients must begin to feel when they keep having to go and see the same doctor. I doubt it's the cancer that actually kills them but the depression from being such friendly mates with someone who they shouldn't know that well. Or maybe I'm just cynical. Well, I am cynical but I still think I'm onto something here.

Anyway, I was there to get the low down on my front tooth. The incisor if anyone remembers learning the actual name from old science lessons at school. This tooth has been a complete nuisance since the last dentist, who I won't name...because I don't know his name, screwed up the first filling. Now my friend Dr Deivis from Sweden has had to fix things. Only it hasn't gone according to plan with the next filling he put in falling out (those damned 20p sweet drumstick things), realising putting in a replacement could screw over an important nerve and so then going for a root canal instead. So far so good. What I didn't know is that even though you put in a filling as part of a root canal, the damned tooth can still die.

Which is what I learned today. Humbling news. My new best friend Deivis told me that my front right incisor is dead. The first part of me to die is my front right incisor. It never even reached 20. He told me that sometimes this can happen but the decay normally occurs over many months whereas this has been rather quick. I took that to mean that when I completely die in hopefully a lot of decades time, you'll only need to wait about six months or so before burying someone on top of me, such is my body's speed at decaying.

So now I am currently lugging around a dead piece of me forever more. Apparently it will need to be whitened from the inside and this should last 7 or so years before I need it redone. Knowing my recent dental problems I'll be going back every year. This costs £120 by the way, yet the whole mouth can be done for £500. I don't really get this as if you get the whole mouth done, that's one hell of a discount. I contemplated it for a few moments before realising I wasn't yet ready to look like Simon Cowell or Richard Hammond when his had just been done on Top Gear.

So I am now booked in to have my tooth whitened and it apparently takes two, three or four sessions. The only problem is it's a dead tooth so why even bother? Why not just yank the fucker out and give me a new one? That'd be kind of funky. A great ice breaker at parties. "I have a false tooth" sounds a lot better than "I have a dead tooth." Better still, I should probably just avoid mentioning it entirely.

Anyway this is being written in memory of my dead tooth. We had some good times; discovering it really could hurt biting into an apple, that time when I got a brain freeze after chomping into an ice cream with you at the forefront of that discovery. Ahh...you shall not be forgotten. Not least because I'll be lugging you about the whole rest of my life anyway and you'll be having more money spent on you than the rest of my mouth combined most likely. Even though you're dead. Ludicrous.

Henry Fosdike's Top Right Incisor. R.I.P 1990-2009/2010? (Can't really be too sure when it died)