The pain stabbed through the fog of (local) anesthesia like an intruding sword. And in another split second, it was over. My bottom right molar had long given me trouble, and had been recommended, by more than one dentist, for extraction, with a bone graft and implant to replace it. However I haven’t been in a hurry to spend a couple grand, so I’d been putting this off for a few years.
No longer. With radiation and chemotherapy right around the corner, it was determined that tooth #31 was not fit to stay, and could cause some trouble down the line. It had to go. The bone graft and implant part of the plan would have to wait. No sense in investing a ton of money in my mouth if…
I’ve had teeth extracted before. One impacted wisdom tooth came out under local anesthesia — the sounds of the drill and the “pressure” of the surgery are forever burned in my memory. The other three wisdom teeth came out under general anesthesia, for exactly that reason.
Today’s extraction somehow loomed larger than any other extraction before it. I came to realize that today’s procedure, however trivial, was the first real, physical step in my cancer journey. Today the rubber hit the road.
I kept the extracted molar as a memento. One small extraction for me, one giant leap for recovery.