Started this thing now complex salacious removal...

Today was my tooth extraction. And it wasn't pleasnt, don't get me wrong, but it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

I got in the chair, he gave me the novocaine, and he left while it took effect. His assistant stayed in the room. She tried to be supportive, and I suppose she was, and I was trying to coach myself through it all. But I was still seriously stressed out.

The dentist came back in and gave me some more novocaine. Then left again. And i sat there and stressed some more.

When he came back, they got to work on the tooth. I didn't feel anything, although I DID hear the roots cracking twice, which was decidedly unpleasant and gross. And then he all of sudden he's yanking something outta my mouth. Which made me momentarily happy, until I saw him going back in. Which meant my biggest fear came true: part of the tooth broke off and he had to go back in and dig the rest out. Which I assume he did. But in less time than it takes me to tell you this, he was telling me to bite down hard, he had put some gauze in there and said, "We're done."

The whole thing took less than three minutes, possibly less than two. I said, "What?" He said, "We're done, it's out." Shocked, I started laughing. I told him he was amazing. They both laughed. He said, "They teach you how to do these in school, but after that, I spent a few months in the Amazon sometimes extracting 20-50 teeth a day with no x-rays. And on people that had never had dental care. You do that, you learn to pick up a few tricks." I shook his hand and again thanked him.

They kept me there for a few minutes to make sure it was clotting, gave me gauze, gave me some simple instructions and sent me on my way.

The whole entire procedure took less than twenty minutes, the vast majority of those spent with me in the chair waiting for the novocaine to take effect. And stressing myself into an early grave.

There's still another tooth that needs pulled, and they asked about making an appointment for it, but I'll probably wait until next year because it's NEVER caused me a moment's harm and the holidays are coming up and I'll wait until that's all over to get that taken care of.

I took a photo of some of the discarded bloody gauze I've removed from my mouth, but I'll spare all of you that bit of gory detail. And thanks for all the good thoughts anyone's sent my way over this. I'm certain they helped.

POLT