Chewing Over Oral Surgery
So the dental surgery I've been mentioning off and on, is a second implant - the procedure where they pull the tooth that can no longer be saved, tuck a surgical steel post up into the root cavity, then, eventually, screw a fake tooth on the threaded end of the post.
It came as a huge surprise to me first time around that the implant procedure takes almost a year or, as my new, attractive, and young enough to be my son, orthodontic surgeon said, "You can't rush bone." (My old orthodontic surgeon said, "You have a remarkably small mouth for a woman your size.")( I like my new orthodontic surgeon better.)(Apparently, I also like typing orthodontic surgeon.) The bone, is bovine; a piece in my sinus to anchor the first implant and small pieces around the second implant to fill the root cavity. I could've had cadaver but I requested bovine. Seriously, it was an easy choice between corpse and cow. People with overactive imaginations do not need to have pieces of other people adhering to their skeletons if there's an option.
Also, it gives me an excuse to lean out of the truck window and moo at my bovine sisters as I drive pass. Fine. I don't actually need an excuse. Still doesn't hurt to have one.
I'm now at the stage where the stitches are gone - so I no longer feel like I can sift krill through the dangling ends - but the gums over the post isn't exactly healed. (What? Oh, they sew the gums back over the end of the post to keep food from getting up into the hole while the bone sets. Later, they'll cut the gums back to expose the end of the post. ) (Gum? It feels like it should be singular but it looks wrong when I write it that way.) Unfortunately, tender, surgically closed gums need to be treated with care for a lot longer than my attention span lasts. FYI, sunflower seeds, not a good idea.
In a just world, in the world where I'd have my flying car, all this surgery should've resulted in an iTooth entertainment unit. Or some kind of communications device like sergeants and above had in the Valor books. Here it is, 2013, and all I get is an ability to chew. Although, I suppose that's for the best; I like chewing and the odds are high that if I had a com unit in my jaw, I'd have it for less than a week before I lost the fracking charger.