Dr. Doom and Hades' Porcelain Crown

It all started with an ill-fated trip to a dentist who specializes in cosmetics. I don't go in for unnecessary dental work, but Dr. Calcagano was recommended to me by a coworker and I needed a routine cleaning. This was several months ago. I went in for the cleaning and emerged with an appointment to have one of my metal fillings replaced with a 3/4 crown. According to Dr. Tooth Demon, this is because old fillings can crack and they contain mercury. I wasn't over-eager to spend the money on an uncracked filling, but the dentist's precaution seemed valid and I wanted to avoid the root canal that comes with a fractured tooth.

That was my first mistake. The crown was expensive and led to a lot of new sensitivity and discomfort. I decided after the procedure that I would resist all of Dr. Blond Evil's future efforts to replace my remaining fillings, but--on the plus side--I'd learned a lesson about the ideology of cosmetic dentistry (Why Leave Well Enough Alone When You Can Replace It With A Prettier, More Expensive Prosthetic) and moved on, albeit by favoring the left side of my mouth.

That was my second mistake. (Not that I had a choice by this point: it's useless to mourn over a tooth now calcifying in a bio waste facility.) Three months passed and I began experiencing a deepening discomfort in my crown. First an acute sensitivity to cold, then a deep ache that woke me up in the night and pursued my jawline in a near perfect semicircle of ow.

Back to the Dental Dominatrix for a new round of pleasure.
"I'm probably overreacting," I told the jovial dental assistant, "But it's really starting to hurt."
"No problem," she replied in the kindly, conspiratorial tone that all of Doctor Barbie's assistants employ. "We don't want you in pain!"
Not in pain, perhaps, but certainly in debt. For here is what happened next.

No sooner had the good doctor x-rayed and tapped my teeth when she cheerily announced that I had irreversible nerve damage and needed an emergency root canal. She got to work immediately, stuffing my mouth with a dental dam (the domestic equivalent of water boarding), numbing my face up to the eyeballs, and drilling away with a stunning array of equipment. I knew something was amiss when my otherwise petite and Prada-clad dentist started breathing heavily and sweating over the din of the drill.
"Well, I can only find one canal," she regretted to inform me. "And I can't even get down that one. We'll have to send you upstairs to Dr. Johnson."
Dr. Johnson is a root canal specialist. The perky assistant marched me upstairs mid-procedure, swollen, stuffed with cotton, and oozing little trickles of bloody spit, where I got to sit for 45 minutes and try not to cry with frustration. The icing on the cake was the unfeeling secretary, who informed me that I would just have to wait because they were very busy and I "didn't have an appointment." When I finally got into the new dentist's chair (shockingly Ken Doll-ish, if Ken was curt and a little chubby), I received another numbing shot, another joyous dental dam, a broken spit suction tool, an aggressive large male hand in my mouth, and HALF of a root canal.
"I'm sorry," Ken said sympathetically while I squirmed in pain and irritation, "But we're very busy today. I'll just medicate your tooth and see you next week to finish the job."
To be fair, I think he stopped in part because the numbing medicine that I had received 3 1/2 hours earlier was wearing off and I was clutching the arms of the chair like an action hero clutches the mountain cliff's edge. His sympathy didn't extend to the bill, however, which was enormous. Again, imagine me confronting the emotionless secretary, trying not to cry while I hand over my first born child. Still drooling blood, of course.

The day would have concluded relatively unhappily after this, but more adventure was in store for me. You see, Dr. Blond Evil's office validates parking, but Dr. Ken Doll's does not. So I got to walk several blocks downtown in the pouring rain, looking like Clint Eastwood after a stroke, grimacing in pain, to find an ATM machine to pay for parking. At this point I also realized that I hadn't eaten since 6:20am.

What eats at my heart and soul, and mouth, is that my tooth was 100% healthy before the Blond Death took over. And now I have paid for a crown, a root canal, and innumerable x-rays in two dental offices. The injustice of it all! The naivete of Little Chef! And deep in my lidocained, bitter heart is the (basically irrational) fear that they've tapped the wrong tooth.

I have half a mind to write my dentist a letter, but I hate to be "that patient." My mouth feels like Dante's 7th circle and my cheek looks like Cerberus' ugliest head. My wallet is empty and my faith in dentistry is shattered. Thank goodness for T, who is bringing me hot and sour soup. Life is full of the biggest blessings.