December 6, 2002
Snaggletooth
Wednesday morning on the way to work I accidentally knocked out part of my front left tooth. This tooth had originally broken when I was about 10 while riding my bike. I was going down a hill pretty fast when my bike's front wheel got caught on a rock and I went head first over the handlebars. My face grabbed some ground as the rest of my body slid behind it, I was sure that I was dead. After a minute or so, I realized that I might live through this, and I got up to assess the damage. I was bloody and chewed up at every joint and limb. Quickly, I realized that I had also knocked out part of my front left tooth. Being very young scared, and away from a mirror it felt to me like there was a gigantic piece missing from my tooth. I rode home on my now wobbly bike and found my mother doing laundry. She took one look at me and hugged me tightly as I sobbed and told her what had happened.
Being a dental hygienist, she stayed cool and looked at my tooth.
“It will be fine”, she said “ the office can fix that right up for you, no worries.”
I was still upset and she saw that when she said, “Do you know what we need?”
“No.” I sniffled.
“Ice Cream!” she said with a big smile.
Thinking only about my pain and fear, I stopped crying immediately because her statement surprised me. We both started laughing hysterically because the allure of ice cream was able to relieve my pain so quickly.
Since then the replacement tooth has popped off about 10 or 11 times. This time it was while trying to put on my glove using one hand and holding my coffee in the other. I didn’t pull that hard on it so I think that it was ready to go anyhow.
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