32 minus 1

We all have the number 32 in common... guess what it refers to...teeth...right..and me I am 32 minus 1 since yesterday. It began last week when a piece of my tooth fell off & I had stinging pain every time I drank something hot, so off we went yesterday to a dentist. He is located near Taman Sri Sentosa, and we were given only driving directions to his place (which turned out to be very accurate). Before leaving home I was a bit nervous as it was my first visit to a dentist since school; and I declared to Amol that if the doctor suggested removal of my tooth I would walk out, another reason for a walk out would be if I was not comfortable with the doctor.

Well Dr. Sarat Dutta (he's a Malaysian born Bengali Babu) put me at ease right away. In fact as we sat awaiting our turn, he came out & spoke to us in hindi & told us that he would like to finish off the current patients & then give us all his time. I liked him, he looked experience & he did not seem like the doctor who would tell me that I have to part with my pearls..I must also tell you that all along the final scenes of 'Finding Nemo' were re-playing in my head, the screaming girl, the whizzing noise, the chaos!!

Well soon we were inside his surgery room, he made me sit on the huge chair, and then asked me why I was there; I told him about the chipped tooth, & the pain & did not forget to add that it was my first visit to a dentist, to this he actually declared that we needed a photo for this momentous day!! much to the amusement of his assistants & my hubby !!
He took his camera wand & showed me all my pearls on the TV over my head, I saw that my wisdom tooth (on the upper left side) was the one that had chipped & it had a good amount of decay, the tooth next to it had a cavity; but the rest of them were perfect :)
So I was given my treatment options of doing a filling for both, or then removing the wisdom tooth since the tooth had decayed quite a bit & the filling would stay for a year at the most & then the only option would be to remove it. Yes he suggested removal !!! by then I should have rushed out of his room but NOOOO I hung on & did some more questioning. Finally I decided that what I have to do in a years time, I might as well do it today as it is it had decayed so there I actually agreed to removal of my wisdom tooth !! Amol was staring at me with amazement.
Then began the procedure, first he did the filling for the cavity then he gave me some local anesthesia for the removal, then the digging & tugging began, my tooth was not giving the doctor an easy time, it was fighting for dear life..poor thing!! It took some 15 minutes to finally get the little fellow out, & I was surprised to see that it was actually a huge thing I mean the roots etc..
I did not feel a thing, and was given some antibiotics, pain killers, anti-swelling medication & sent home. I had a funny feeling as the anesthesia wore off & then decided to head home instead of the earlier plan of going to Mid Valley for groceries. I slept off most of the day, & evening we went to Anjjapaar in Bangsar for a simple meal of Dosa, Uttapa & Idli.
The day was quite eventful for me, now one day later I must tell you my truest feelings...I miss my tooth & am sad to be 32 minus 1.