My Experience as Youth Pastor

So I'm gonna take a break from talking about sex. I do have a few important things to take care of today like my Wednesday night wrap up and all. Before that though, I gotta talk about my teeth and sinuses. Don't tell Candy but I haven't been to the dentist for over 10 years now. Well that was until yesterday. I've been having really bad sinus problems since November 2008. Last time I had problems like this it turned out it was dental.

Back in high school I had braces. During my junior year I was sick a lot with sinus infections and strep through. I would basically get sick a few days after getting off antibiotics. The doctor would gripe me out about finishing al the pills even if I felt better which I was doing. He never believed me. Back then a lot of people didn't believe me. I think that might be why I try so hard to listen to my Youth and believe them. Anyways late spring, just before school got out, I got my braces off. Let me say I loved the feeling of having my braces off. More importantly they did a panoramic x-ray and found out my wisdom teeth needed to be removed. The bottom ones were growing in pointed to the front of my mouth and the top were angled towards the other teeth. In addition to that the root of one of the top teeth was partially in my sinus cavity and was surrounded by ick. That is what kept causing my infections. Late that summer I got my wisdom teeth pulled and haven't had sinus infections until the past year.

Yesterday I went to the dentist wondering if I would have something similar. I was worried because the fix could be really expensive, but I am desperate to be done with the sinus infections. Anyways, they didn't find anything like that but I did have a substantial cavity. While I was waiting friends like Helen were kind enough to try and distract me. Although I will say that sharing terrible dentist jokes via twitter to a guy in a dentist chair is not very distracting. So once the Novocain did its thing I the dentist started drilling.

Let me say something about drilling.

I think dentists must have seen this movie at some point and thought, "I'd like to do that." This is the worst cavity I've ever had and I heard some things I've never heard. Specifically as he was nearly done drilling the dentist says to the assistant, "see where it is starting to look a little pink. That's the pulp." Instantly I thought of this movie. Pulp? You really don't mean that do you? A bit later he explains that the cavity went really deep and was on the edge of the pulp, which is the meaty part of the tooth. He told me, "we look ok here but if you puncture the pump that is when blood start gushing everywhere."

Did I mention there were bird outside watching during all of this and Helen sending me bad dentist jokes the whole time? At one point there was a crow on the empty bird feeder. That is just not comforting at all. Someone else on twitter said something about vultures. At that point I would have had to leave and never return. I don't care if there is a big hole in my teeth when the birds call in a vulture as a dental consultant it is tme to leave.

So the drilling is done and the dentist has explained they will need to apply a special layer to protect the pulp and then he leaves to go finish someone else up. Here I sit with a big hole in my tooth. Yeah I had to look while the dentist was out. I might not have but it was a very long wait. In fact by the time he gets back the Novocain was wearing off. I had to get another shot before they could fill the tooth. The rest was pretty uneventful till the dentist explained that I might have a root canal in my near future. It all depends on how much damage Helen did to my nerve or something like that.

So that was my dental experience. I'm not sure if the sinus problem was caused by this cavity, but maybe all of that is behind me now.

Last night was really great. We had Unity play for the first time. That is out new worship band that is a merged youth band. They only did a couple cover songs but it was really good. I talked about drugs and other vices again. Last night was better than the week before because I wasn't doped up from prescription meds. I also got to talk to several students about a lot of things last night so I'm really happy about how the evening went.

Mostly I'm happy I woke up without any tooth pain today. Hopefully I won't have to get a root canal.