It’s been 10 years since I had felt any real dental pain due to losing my teeth in an accident. The emotional pain was much more trying, relearning how to eat, talking and not drooling all over my self. Overcoming each obstacle became a personal milestone. Without any teeth, not only does eating make you look funny, it also makes you the center of attention in public. It’s can be humiliating and degrading.
The most important milestone I overcame is the humiliation. Right to the point that I could really careless what you think of me appearance wise. Besides, there are other aspects to my appearance that people often feel the need to share with me how they feel embarrassed for me. Oh really??? Great…you go right ahead and do just that.
You are more likely to notice my forked tongue than the absence of embedded calcium deposits in my mouth. There are people still to this day that are amazed to discover I don’t have any teeth. Of course, my nine inches (calm down ladies) of red goatee goodness helps conceal this fact.
Let’s get back to the pain…I’m definitely no stranger to pain. I’ve probably experienced some of the most horrifying pain known to man, willingly and unwillingly. The only difference between the two is the former you think to yourself, my god what the fuck was I thinking? It is that conscience awareness that seems to magnify the intensity of the pain a million times. Got nobody to blame, or complain to…you think to yourself ‘I chose to do this, suck it up, deal with it…move on’. Yeah right…whine…someone baby me please! 
Last Tuesday, 09/18/2007, I took the plunge and had 10 dental implants installed. Four posts on the bottom jaw, six on the upper jaw. The entire procedure was estimated to take 4 long grueling hours while under a twilight sedation. Not completely knocked out, and very unlike a dissociative like Special K. Just a big dreamy state, where you really don’t care what’s going on, but are still able to respond to the dentist if the need arises. No problem, right? NOT!
I woke up 15 minutes into the procedure. Not just any kind of awake, I’m like super wide awake (which is very unusual for me consider I have to take a pill to keep my ass awake, but that’s another post for another time). The dentist wanted to abort the procedure, but continued at my insistence, as no pain was being experienced.
The absence of pain, but the awareness of the dentist drilling into my jaw was rather intriguing. It was no different than drilling into a block of wood. Drill a little bit, pull out, brush away the cruft then repeat until the drill bit no longer feels any resistance but breaks thru the other side. In this case, the wood is my jaw, and the other side is my sinus cavity. Wow, a spinning spiral shaped metal rod is rotating in my sinus cavity, wow…that’s a thought. Then a implant, which oddly resembles a thumb screw for the back of server cases, is twisted by hand into the freshly created hole, followed by a 5 to 7 good twists from a ratchet to ensure it’s securely placed. Now repeat that 9 more times. The only bad part was I kept wanting to gag because of the bone fragments sitting on the back of my throat.
Amazingly, everything went very smoothly. The entire procedure took about 30 minutes. Sometimes when screwing in implants, they break or worse yet , fracture your jaw. I was feeling pretty good after the surgery. My good buddy from work, Travis swung by and picked me up. Half-way back to the office, is when the pain started in. Oh screw this, I’m going home.
It felt like someone shoved a football up my nose. As the novacaine started to wear off, the burning sensation spread to my eyes and my ears. It was completely unbearable. No problem, call the dentist and get different pain meds I thought. Great idea! Except for the fact I sounded like Corky and could barely talk. Luckily for me, they knew who was calling and why, and took care of me.
Next week I’ll go back in for my first check-up. They’ll x-ray me, make sure there are no fractures, and that the implants are securely in place and not loose. If all goes well, they will pop my dentures in! Lemme tell ya, in the last 10 years is when I really began to notice how important nice looking teeth makes for a person’s face. I convinced myself that I didn’t need them, but you know what…I don’t, but damnit, I want to be able to have a nice smile.
I have to say hats off to a couple of supportive folks, Travis Thomsen. He made sure I got to and from the dentist. Charnell Pugsley for being supportive emotionally and in sensibility (she strongly discourages me from getting another bike). 
Plus all my co-workers at the Beach. Thanks guys you r0×0r.
Not the typical diamond crusted bling for your ears. Infact it only suited for a small sub-set of truly elite folks; one’s with a big fat wallet and some hearing loss. For extra gluttony, it even comes with a equally styled remote. Priced around $50,000 (unclear if this is per ear). It’s cheaper to get two cochlear implants than buying two of these!
