A Friend in the Business

I was thinking I might be able to head out to Ocala after I got back and ask Steve Saint to pull my tooth jungle dentist style. I figured that could save me a pile of money and I've been needing to go out and see Steve anyway. But the pain was getting unbearable and I decided I just couldn't wait that long. I thought I might be able to stop in to see my dentist friend in Orangeburg on the way out of town today. The only time available was 10:30 this morning and I couldn't deal with the trailer tire and the dump before then, so it was a separate trip. The dental assistant who took the x-ray said it should be a surgical extraction but he was calling it a simple extraction, which is a whole lot cheaper. She shook her head wondering why he would do such a thing. The tooth could have been saved with a lot of time, work, and money. He told me that far back molar actually does very little chewing work so it really wasn't worth saving. It took a whole lot of elbow grease, but he got the sucker out. He actually had to take a break to rest his arm two or three times. When it finally came out his forearm was pumped up like he'd been lifting weights, which he does regularly at Gold's Gym. I didn't feel anything but pressure. When he started shooting my jaw up with Novocain it was heaven! He kept shooting and shooting till I couldn't feel a thing. I didn't mind the tug-of-war with my jaw at all. He told me afterward that most guys would have put me under for something like that and most of this kind of thing he refers to an oral surgeon. He also happens to be the guy who trained Steve Saint in his jungle dentistry skills and he said Steve wouldn't have been able to handle this one. From my end, it really was less of an ordeal than I expected and $138 out the door was the whole bill. Once in a while it's nice to have a friend in the business. He told me I shouldn't be changing trailer tires out in the heat and unloading a trailer at the dump today. I didn't feel much like doing that either by the time I got back up to Columbia. So, I'm stuck here one more day. The phone rang and I have a gig for Thursday which I should make it back for. I hope. At this point I don't care about much else. The pain went away with the molar.