And the hits just keep onnnnnn coming.

I blame it on the fact that I looked at my balanced bank account this weekend and thought to myself, “Self, you have a little bit of extra money.”

Dear Universe: really, by “extra money” I meant that I could treat the girls to ice cream and maybe splurge on Subway instead of bringing peanut butter one day this week. NOT that I had an extra $1400 lying around.

Let me explain a bit further for those of you who haven’t been privy to my overly dramatic gmail status messages. My tooth, it has been hurting off and on for the past two weeks. I rationalized not going to the dentist by telling myself that I tend to carry my stress in my jaw. I often clench my jaws and molars together during the night. So, I convinced myself that the ache was probably just soreness from that, especially since I’ve been stressing over, oh six hundred things lately. But then the ache starting coming back more frequently. Hot and cold never bothered it, pressure didn’t bother it. The only thing that bothered me was that it didn’t ever go away.

Then I thought about the fact that I will be flying home in a few weeks. The air pressure at 35,000 feet – even in a pressurized cabin – can do bad, bad things to ears and to teeth.

I finally went in to the dentist’s today. I’m colossally enormously the world’s gonna end a wee bit phobic about the dentist’s, but I’ve come to love and trust my dear old dentist. It’s a small office and they’re good people. They remember me from visit to visit and not just because my file is listed under “Crackpots.” He thinks I’m a riot. I had him in stitches today when he popped his head in to the room to tell me my x-ray did show an infected root. As he explained the situation to me, I twisted my poor hands into knots and told joke after joke. I don’t quite know why I feel the need to make everyone think I’m hysterically funny when I’m panicking the hell out. But I do. I begged him to find another cure. I begged him to cancel his vacation and do it himself. (Nevermind that he doesn’t do root canals on teeth that have crowns. Because oh yeah I HAVE A CROWN ON THAT TOOTH ALREADY!)

He laughed and promised me the endodontist he was referring me to was sweet and kind and used to neurotic women gentle and would take excellent care of me. I interrupted his hilarious list to remind him that he hadn’t mentioned inexpensive. Because a co-worker recently had a root canal on a crowned molar and it cost her $1400 out-of-pocket with our insurance. My dentist laughed at me and said I didn’t want “cheap” when it came to dentistry. He said this dentist was who he would use if he needed this procedure. I’m making light of how hilarious he thought I was, but he spent so much time calming me down that I almost felt a little better.

Truthfully? I’m not that worried about the procedure. A little bit, but I think I’ll be okay with some (lots!) of happy gas and my iPod. Really, I’m scared to death of my copay. I don’t have $1400. I don’t even have $700. I would fall on my knees and kiss the ground if I could squeak in under $300. But I’m trying not to think that way so I don’t cry too hard when the figure is closer to the $1400 I originally heard.

When will I ever learn not to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing? I am so sorry I thought I didn’t have a single thing to blog about yesterday, because LOOK WHAT HAPPENS when you think that. At the very least, my mouth is apparently emergent enough to get a next-day appointment. I think it was my innocent, “So can I fly with this?” question that got them moving. At least, that’s what I like to think. Either that or I’m an A-list celebrity undercover from myself.

Dude, that would be so cool.

Tags: dentist, karma, root canal