Dr. Komae Saves the Day

WARNING: This post may contain slightly graphic dental-oriented information.

As I was dutifully flossing my teeth last night, I felt what I thought was a large clump of food emerge from the space between my two back molars. I thought, "Wow, that was a really big piece of something....what did I eat tonight?" After landing on my tongue and upon further lingual examination, I realized the chunk was hard, and definitely not food. I took it out of my mouth, held it between my fingers and gave it a good, scrutinizing look. What do you suppose it was? If you guessed a quarter of my back molar, you're right! A piece of my tooth spontaneously came off, and while I was doing what the dentist ordered!

I laughed about it after I showed Kent, but I was worried. My thoughts: Was I going to have to get a crown? I already have two of those, I don't need more. Was my body falling apart prematurely? Isn't early graying enough? I don't want to lose my teeth at age 31. I started thinking I was like Benjamin Button, but I wasn't getting younger like he was. Sometimes I go to extremes in my head; it's a bad habit.

Luckily, I was able to see my dentist, Dr. Komae, today and he relieved all of my crazy thoughts. He said I didn't need a crown yet (I'm hoping the "yet" means not for another 20 years or so), that a new filling would be sufficient. Apparently, it was an old filling that had come off in the flossing session, not my actual tooth. Made me feel better, although I'm still wondering about the getting older at a faster than normal rate thing.

My mouth is a little sore this evening from the dentist escapade, but I'm grateful my tooth is back in working order and I'm grateful for dentists. We would be in bad shape without those men and women who stare inside our mouths day in and day out. Not a glamorous job, but somebody has to do it.