The Tale of the Temporary Crown
Monday’s dentist visit to get a temporary crown was hard on me. I’m just now getting around to writing about it, though, because the physical exertion of PT this week plus the stress of the dental visit depleted my energy stores.
For the uninitiated, chemo is traditionally very hard on teeth.
All the puking plus all the being too dizzy to move and brush my teeth plus suffering through dry mouth was always going to be bad news for my teeth. So my feelings of general dentist anxiety were met with visions of horror stories I’d heard from my cancered friends and the tens of thousands of dollars they’d needed on top of cancer treatment costs because their teeth were literally disintegrating.
I can’t imagine radiation helped me much either.
***
I was eating dinner last week when I chewed something uncharacteristically gritty. I ran my tongue over my molars and could feel a tiny hole. “I think I lost a filling,” I told Mom, who recommended her dentist. I hadn’t been since my first round of chemo in 2017, so I was anticipating a nightmare. But I called Friday and they got me in Monday.
I was so distraught that Dan had to bear hug and lower my rigid self into the dentist’s chair. (I still have panic attacks that immobilize me, even though they are less frequent and less severe these days.) But the staff was kind. And after the new patient exam, the dentist told me that if I didn’t mind seeing the other dentist at the practice and waiting a bit, they could take care of me without coming back the next day
I had lost part of a filling and a chunk of tooth and needed a temporary crown while the permanent crown was in the works. This is my first crown, and believe you me: those suckers ain’t cheap. (So I’m asking for help again, because SSDI is an absolute joke.)
My dentist also recommended scaling and Invisalign down the road. I was all set to be like “I’m not doing orthodontics again” but she explained that cosmetics weren’t the issue. The overcrowding made it difficult to brush and floss, which would hasten decay. Basically, pay now or pay later.
***
In all, I was in the chair for three and a half hours. The Novacaine wasn’t working terribly well on me, and I ended up stopping them twice while they were drilling out the bulk of the original filling. The stress set off my autoimmune whatever-the-hell-doctors-can’t-diagnose, and I ended up with a low-grade fever, muscle aches, and a cold sore Tuesday morning.
The dentist at the practice was very kind and knowledgeable, but looked 13. It was added trauma to realize I am an old. Next thing I know I’ll be saying things like “whippersnapper” and talking about my friend Arthur. Arthur Itis.
Anyway, when he called me a trooper, I knew it was going to be a fun 48 hours of liquid meal replacement shakes.
I am better now, and proud of me for being an entire adult about my dental health. Bottom line is that without EMDR therapy and physical therapy, I’d have made a thousand excuses to stay home and avoid seeing a dentist. I’m proud of me and so grateful this didn’t happen before I was ready.
All of that—crown, cleaning, X-rays, Invisalign—means now I need to raise about $8,000. Yikes. If you’d like to contribute a few dollars to my dental fund, please donate at PayPal.me/EmilySuess or my Brain Cancer GoFundMe.