Climbing the Third Stair

I now have what feels like the mother of all fillings in my back left molar. The pulp wasn't affected by the break and the nerve is healthy (yay!) so I didn't need a root canal. (double yay!) The dentist who saw me is strongly recommending that I get a crown on that tooth, but I haven't yet decided. More on that later, maybe.

Meanwhile, I got the chance to hang out with cassandra_e last night, and as a result she had some thoughts on editing goats. :-)

When I got home from church this morning (it is indeed a fortunate thing that I like the smell of incense) there was a message on my phone machine from Vivie. We had talked vaguely last week about going out for brunch on Easter, but I hadn't heard anything from her during the week so I had given up hope. No, according to the message she had just been disorganized during the week and was I still interested? I was and so we eventually connected and decided on Grandmother's. Grandmother's isn't the swankiest place in Lincoln, but their Sunday breakfast buffet offers made-to-order omelettes (very nice when dining with a vegetarian) and Belgian waffles hot off the griddle (one of my favorite breakfast things).

There was a crowd, but we got seated long before we got bored standing so that was good. I acquired an entire waffle, smothered it with strawberries (frozen-and-thawed, alas, not fresh, but still good) and whipped (non-dairy) cream *sigh*. When Vivie got back to the table I smiled at her over my plate of waffle goodness and said, "Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first." She laughed.

About ten minutes later, while eating a piece of bacon, I broke one of my back molars. I hadn't realized at first what had happened--I felt a crack and a sharp pain, but after a few moments the pain went away. I started to eat again and had the disconcerting feeling of something moving around in my jaw. Sticking my fingers into my mouth at the dinner table is something I try to avoid, so I excused myself and went to the bathroom to investigate. Looking in the bathroom mirror and gingerly feeling around with a finger I discovered the truth: One of my teeth was broken.

This was a problem I haven't had to deal with, so I returned to the table to consult with Vivie. She hadn't had this problem before either, and so had no advice. I went to the hostess station, explained what had happened, and asked for a phone book and a phone. After some fumbling around I call the emergency line for the Dental College (which is where I get my dentistry done) and after a round of phone tag get connected with today's on-call person.

Since I was in no pain then (and still aren't as I type this) the dentist said I should call in for an emergency appointment in the morning, and gave me the phone number to use. He also recommended a temporary dental filling to use in case the broken part of the tooth fell out *shiver*, and said I should call back if I developed pain in the meantime.

That sorted out I went back to the table and updated Vivie. I decided that I should probably get the temporary filling kit now, just in case, so we headed to the nearest Walgreens. They were out, but one of the clerks called around until she found a store that had it and we drove there. And as long as I was there, I picked up a new package of hair color--I need to recolor it for the Kotei.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself the rest of the evening. I have a long list of things I intended to do, but I keep obsessing over my tooth. I'm tempted to slather the patching on it now, to keep the pieces in place, but I don't know if that will do more harm than good. But what if I grind my teeth at night? What would happen then? (As a point of fact I don't know if I grind my teeth at night, but my mom does--or did when she still had teeth--so it's worth considering.)
I also don't know how long it's going to take me to get an appointment, how much it will cost, and if I am going to lose the tooth completely.

I am however pretty sure that I was right to eat dessert first.