Tooth Fairy.

All hail my wonderous dentist! I bow before her, praise her healing powers!

A recently awkward resident in my upper right jaw has been evicted.

Fortunately I've only managed to sprout 2 wisdom teeth in my time, both Uppers. They came through about 20 years ago without much hassle at all, but the right hand side one was slightly impacted against the rear molar and grew at a bit of an outward angle. Quite a pointy-crowned little 'back-of-the-classroom' distraction, it was a little abrasive against the cheek interior as it grew through but settled down to be little trouble thereafter. Apart from being difficult to clean around that is. Daily oral rummaging with brush and floss and picks to keep things good.

However, a couple of weeks ago it started to make its presence felt a bit more insistently. What was that sudden throb of pain about the right hand side of the jaw which materialised after a surf session then amplified for half an hour- sending a jolt up some neural mainline behind the right eyeball?  Cold water tweaking some sensitive gum tissue? Had some of the sea seeped into a previously un-douched forehead cavity, jangling a nerve therein? (Salt water re-appearing some time after surfing, having been caught in the sinuses, is quite common and usually comes as a nasal waterfall in the middle of a polite evening meal or suchlike!)  Jeezus H...!... What if rolling around in a boisterous sea had suddenly disturbed some dormant brain tumour which was about to......?

That warning flash faded as quickly as it materialised though. I ruled toothache out. And brain tumours and all the rest of it. Put it down to being knackered, a freak headache. Nowt to worry about man.

Then, Tuesday this week and here we go again. Same deal. Just finishing a short but moderately strenuous little walk with Sarah and the kids. So- feeling a bit tired, and suddenly it's Black & Decker to the right jaw and eye-socket Sir, and get-your-head-in-your-hands for an hour. Again the pain came and went without reappearing that day. Again I tried not to think too much of it, putting it down to tiredness.

Wednesday and Thursday let me know what the story was though. From Wed. evening and intermittently through Thurs. there were repeating waves of nagging pain. Don't much care for taking painkillers but that became necessary both nights to get to sleep. Swilling a bit of water around in my mouth was enough to completely alleviate the twang for a while during the day but that certainly pointed out that the root cause must be oral in origin. The only minor trouble zone in my gob for years had been said wisdom tooth and come yesterday morning I'd eventually accepted that I needed help and that that help lay somewhere behind a dentist's door.

Retrospectively I'd been trying to sidle around all the 'Horror Stories' hadn't I. Because, basically, there aren't any rolling-in the-aisles funny, or usually even remotely reassuring stories about teeth, wisdom teeth or dentists. Fact! I'd got out for a run on Thurs. and a day later was trying to psyche myself up for some dental surgery inevitability or other and this was all welling up into some kind of personal Marathon Man horror scenario with me as the unfortunate victim. Yep. I was feeling a little sorry for meself!

I don't want to sicken anyone who's had an eternity or an agonising wait, or both, to see a dentist, but here's what happened.

I felt I had a little luck on my side in that I've been on holiday this week so didn't have to bunk work to go try sort some treatment out. But, I'd been told that our local dentist, who is conveniently situated in the village and merely 5 mins walk away wasn't at work at present, so I was just expecting to find emergency contact details on the surgery door and take it from there. I don't want to go too far into why I'd been told that the dentist wasn't at work, suffice to say that she has suffered illness recently which has meant surgery and courses of treatment for her. But- at work she indeed was and has been in spite of her setbacks, albeit just for the mornings recently. So- the second stroke of luck was that I was on the other side of the surgery door alot sooner than expected and the third stroke of luck chimed quick as she was prepared to at least consult about my problem just as soon as she'd finished scale-and-polishing the family foursome already there, thank you very much. (It was 11.30, the morning session was to finish at 1, and she had three other people to see after the family she was treating when I walked in, and who started to appear as I sat feeling alternately the most miserable and then the luckiest of specimens!)

What can I say?!

 As soon as she'd had a look and a tap at the offending tooth there was a flurry of words between us and the final scene was set. A gap between tooth and gum. Infection, maybe hidden decay. Antibiotics and see if the pain clears up? (I weighed the possibilities feeling detached, doomed, frankly-scared! What to do? I knew she'd be away from work for a while in another week's time for her own treatment to commence again. Her own health concerns dwarfing my problem a thousandfold. And yet, right now she was bright, cheerful, reassuring and ready to strike while the iron was hot.) "I take it out now for you! Done in 2 minutes. Won't be so bad. You only ever hear the horror stories....."

What could I say?! No havering now. No holding up the queue I'd managed to jump. Decision time. 

"Go ahead. Do it." And I didn't mind openly confessing my nervousness.

Those hypodermics look huge up close to your face! There were 2 of them, and that was the worst bit really. The leg came up a little from the chair while I was reclined and the second needle went in! Then I sat up, got up, walked around the room a little as the anaesthetic started to make my face feel like a cubist painting, all previous perspective peculiarly perverted. Sat back down as she reassured me again, explaining how the extraction would feel which, in the end, probably took longer than actually pulling the thing.

Those forceps look huge up close to your face too, but their image was only floating across my field of vision rather than being horribly etched onto it Clockwork Orange stylee. For the few seconds that the wiggle-and-then-pull operation took all I could feel was awe and admiration for the steely determination it must take, no matter how familiar the procedure is, to reach inside someone else's face and wrench from there a part of them whilst maintaining such calm professionalism and kindliness to keep the patient at ease. Really, I had... nowt to worry about (lucky) man!

"So, will any sort of painkiller do later on when this anaesthetic wears off Jeanette?"

"Oh! I don't think you will have any problem!"

I didn't.