[Editor’s Note: Halloween is a time for horrors… but the most horrifying experiences are often those that occur in every day life. Like for example, the horror of dentistry. Get ready to shake in terror upon reading this true life tale of dental-related horror in an anthology we like to call… THE TELL TALE TOOTH. Enjoy. (Insert cackling laughter here.)]
It was a punishing July day in 1994, and I sought the succor of the river. After a dip I climbed out, reaching for a towel spread on the boulder shore—but my hand plunged straight down between two rocks. There was a sickening crunch as my face collided with the boulder. Napalm-white light pierced my eyes as my tongue probed crumbled enamel. The pain was brilliant.
My tooth was broken lengthwise, a triangular wedge missing from the center and a crack splitting up through the root. I didn’t have insurance, so I made an appointment with the county health clinic. The dental technician glued a temporary crown over the shattered front tooth.
“You’ll wanna get this fixed right away,” he said.
“Right away” somehow turned into five years, but I was finally on the Oregon Health Plan and spent an entire summer at OHSU having a lifetime of various dental maladies individually addressed. I had 16 cavities drilled and filled. My wisdom teeth were jerked out by a 100-pound dental student who lacked the upper body strength to pull them cleanly. This required her to stand above me wrenching them back and forth until the roots were torqued from the anchoring jawbone and my gums were raw hamburger. I had only been given a shot of Novocain, and was keenly aware of everything: the slow crunch of bone; the sound of metal grinding in my ear; the panic on the dental student’s face as all the blood left mine.