| "Need that like a 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-top outside the original 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 by a Seldin Eeeuw. Oh, and the hole wasn't there. Doc Hughes says he made that fresh that day, and I believe him, as there was some tunnel-boring noise and vibration going on (I wanted to put my hands behind my head to hold it steady!), 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 dental assistant/staff photographer Christine away from the office phone so she can take pictures inside your mouth with her pocket's iphone, 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 to 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. Assistant Joni, 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 "3-in-1 abutment" 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. Nice colors
with that iphone, Christine! 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 Christine'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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