I like a good stuffing.

My malcontentment.

This is an aside to my current bout of shingles and occurred just before the onset of that insidious malady. About four weeks ago and during our Sunday dinner, I happened to bite on a hard piece of my wife's stuffing. I felt and heard a sharp crack in my mouth (this is a due warning to steer clear of my wife's culinary pursuits). The top of my head almost flew off with the pain. Bugger! I thought - or oaths to that effect - I've cracked a tooth. Not only A tooth, it was THE tooth. The one that stands/stood proud and unsupported in my upper gums which I treasure(d) but it is/was in a very vulnerable position. EXTREMELY vulnerable to my missuses crispy stuffing.

After the attack of the crispy stuff I immediately became malcontent 'cos it was then also extremely painful to the touch and masticating on that side of my mouth was impossible.As I mentioned, this was a Sunday, so no dental surgery was available to me. On the Monday - after I'd struggled to get a bowl of lukewarm porridge inside me - I made for the dentists chair. The dentist, I fine upstanding Dutch lady, took everything on board what I told about the incident and she looked at the tooth and then prodded it a bit with a gloved finger. I hurt. It BLOODY HURT! But she tried to convince me that it wasn't broken. I argued that it was. It was my tooth, I broke it and I wanted it out of my head!

But she knew different and she is the expert. So she X-rayed it. Ten minutes later she proudly showed me the X-ray picture of my sentinel tooth and declared in triumph that indeed it wasn't broken! What I had probably done is bruised the surrounding tissue which should respond to a course of antibiotics which she would supply me with. I was to give it a week or so in order for the antibiotics to do their stuff and to come back if the pain still persisted. I went home with my tooth still giving me gyp.

Even during and after that seven day course of antibiotics the pain was horrendous if I as much as chomped on jelly (jello), but I couldn't return to the dentistry 'cos now I had ugly shingles affecting my head from my left eye across my head and into my left ear. Charming! So I had to - not only suffer my hurting tooth, but I had painful and unsightly shingles to contend with while my wife Beryl, (who's stuffing had floored me, remember?) sat sunning herself in the Mediterranean for three weeks on the liner Arcadia!

Anyway, yesterday after about four weeks of discomfort, I took my pain back to the dentist. This very nice Dutch lady invited me to sit in the chair and when I told her that I still had trouble eating and that I definitely wanted the fang out she prodded my hurting tooth AGAIN!! SHE still didn't reckon it was broken and fished out from my notes the X-ray photo as if to prove it. And I must admit that the photo did show my good side and there was absolutely no evidence of a break. But when I continued to insist, she reluctantly agreed to abide by my decision to have it removed and prepared me with the usual needled dose of nova cane.

When my mouth was well and truly numbed she brought the extractor to bear on my tooth and the damn thing almost fell out! Well HALF of the damn thing fell out, the other half is still in and the dentist won't even TRY to remove it 'cos it's too near my sinus gland and I will require hospitalisation to remove it!!! She stood there with the half tooth in the jaws of the extractor, waving it in front of my eyes and said:

"It WAS cracked!" Doh!!!