| "Need that like another hole in your head!"
they always say, like you'd never need another hole in
your head. Well, I guess I was needing it, because it was
decided by a consultation of the elders (and the folks
with the fat stacks) that a hole in the head was exactly
what I did need, because #8 got sorely (haha!) kissed by the
fence-post outside Big People Scooters, and while it fit
back in for a couple of days, it finally came out at the
dentist who determined it quite dead at that time. That's what my skull bone looks like with the gum slit and slid back. Eeeuw. Oh, and the hole wasn't there. Well, that's what they told me. Doc Hughes says he made that fresh today, and I believe him, as there was some tunnel-boring noise and vibration going on, and that doesn't look organic whatsoever, and you can see a little bone thread up in there, right? |
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| So after you get the hole all nice and purty, and have called the receptionist away from the office phone so she can take pictures inside your mouth with her pocket's phone (and you'll have to get her name to get it in here, thank her personally to the world) you get out the "titanium implant". They're kind of nasty looking things, which I didn't get an actual picture of outside (sniff!) but Wikipedia's got a good one here, with the lower 2 bits I don't have yet. I suppose Doc Evans who's making the abutment and crown for me later will have a little extra room these days to scrape plaque and black off of #7 and #9, and drill and fill #10 over there, and all the other ones that need the same as well. You can see a couple of threads on it hanging out there. A Helicoil, my Dad likes to say, should you know what a helicoil is, as we know it's for fixing your bug or bus engine when you've thrown a rod in your aluminum case and unceremoniously ripped a stud or two out. Kind of like what I did with my tooth! |  |
| So I'm thinking I got a 3.8x12mm implant, because
that's about how big the root that used to grow there
was. The hygenist (and yet another name I'll need) who
watched me while the numb came on and helped me with the
water cup (which I hardly spilled all over myself as much
as I could/should have as the numb crept in) at the
beginning had a fancy transparency up on the X-ray
viewing thing, and I had thought she'd lined up the
5.8x12mm over my X-ray and that's what we were going to
screw in, but she wasn't trying to line anything up, it
was my misunderstanding wholly, and I was a little happy
that it was going to be smaller than what I'd mistakenly
thought. Or, maybe, just then brain misfiring a little,
we all knew the novacaine was working, and we could
commence drilling the hole. Pretty cool how that all
worked out. That goldish thingie is the "socket" (for lack of a better word? a little help Doc?) that fits on the tool and into (or around? is there a hex-head on that?) the implant for insertion. |
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| So you get it nice and flush with the bone. Eeuuuw.
That's what skull-bone looks like alright. Gotta find out
what kind of phone that was too for posterity as well. Ta-da! Implant installed. And don't bug it for 3 months! Let the bone grow around it buddy, without anything hanging out of it that you might torque on. I don't know how long they make you stay off your titanium screwed leg bones, but Wikipedia will surely tell me after I get this uploaded. And that certainly seems fair, I mean we did just drill a whole into my skull for the first time in my life... So there it is, you get a hole in your head, in your mother-f***in' head. (hehe! from mp3skull!) But threaded on the inside now, for fanciness later. And dig that spit-string! Like a spiderweb in the rain, gorgeous! |
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| And after all that (like less than an hour? and we
did spend a lot of time playing with the camera...) I got
the teensiest man-hole (tooth-hole?) cover ever,
installed with the tiniest torque-wrench ever. It was a
ratchet for sure, I was joking about it being a torque
wrench, but it right well might have been. "Cover
screw" is what Wikipedia calls it, but I was looking
for a niftier name than that, and will stick with
"teensiest man-hole cover" until I come up with
something better, or the dentist provides one. "Like jewelry!" I said happily, seeing it on (her name?)'s phone. It's just to keep the gum from trying to grow up into that fine (literally AND figuratively) screwhole we all just put in. It's pretty, no? Nice contrast between the blood-oozing bone and the shiny screw-head. |
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| And I'm glad we took a picture, because you just
can't leave the office with your skull hanging out of
your face, so they give you a little fancy needlework to
cover it over, I'm thinking that the cover-screw is made
out of material that doesn't like to have gum grow over
it? Or maybe not, again, this is where I'll have to get
help from the staff at the office. And while higher resolution here at home, the difficulties of positioning the camera, the light, your own lip, and the mouse over the "take a picture" button and clicking it all at the same time by your lonesome is always a tough one. But I'm getting far better at that, practice making perfect, slow and steady winning the race. Like bone growth! |
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