Not For the Faint of Heart!

The Tale of The Tooth:

After my original Idea was stolen, straight from my brain by Sean (no doubt with the aid of some shady Equivalenz tech), I was forced to reconsider.

I chose to document this: The deconstuction of an unhealthy tooth, by the method of Root Canal.

I've been having a ongoing toothache for a month, and I finally went to see an endodontist. He asked me to give it a little time to see if it would heal on it's own. It did not; so I finally had to go in to have the tooth cored and refilled.

I went in with some apprehension, knowing only stories of Root Canals, but it turned out to be very different than I expected. There was no pain involved (untill afterwards) but it took several hours and was an entirely befuddling process. With a simple filling, you know what's occuring; they drill, and then they fill. But the Root Canal seemed to be a strange and meaningless ceremony.

It began with the typical drilling, which lasted much longer than expected, and puncuated by the loud reverbarating squeal and the smell of drilled bone. Around this point, I realized I could see the tooth magnified in the dentist's microscope lens, through some miracle of optics involving his small mirror. My first sight was of a tiny porcelin bowl, filled with gore.

This was my tooth. At this point the doctor switched to an hour long task involving a befuddling series of tiny picks in files with equally befuddling names. I can only assume this process was to remove the nerve from the three tiny roots, but even with a clear view of what was occuring, I couldn't be certain. There was no pain during the process, but as the nerve was removed I began to experience bizaare phantom sensations. It made me think of phantom limb syndrome. It was like by brain was sending the signal for pain, but it was empty. The shape of the pain was there, but it was hollow. Like recieving a constant stream of mail that contains blank pages. (you will excuse the odd metaphor, I'm a bit of a synaesthete.)

After this long process, they begain to fill the hollow of my tooth with a strange, smoking pink goo from the end of a small gun-like tool. On top of this, went a temporary crown. And then it was done. As the novacaine wore off, my jaw and tooth began to ache fiercly, so I've been taking Advil like candy ever since.

I snapped the following pictures while apologizing and pretending to check who'd called. Lies. No one calls.