A Matter of Personal Greatness

I do believe the thing that distinguishes me above the common man, above the lion's share of human beings, is my poor dentition; for it is practically incomparable, purely set apart, a sort of avant garde art work of weird spaces and angles. Each tooth is one of a kind. So, altogether, that equals about 5 of a kind.

I count myself on an equal footing with Lydwina of Scheiden, the 15th century nun who apparently still holds the record for the worst teeth ever, and who also, supposedly, had the first documented case of multiple sclerosis.

Nonetheless, I have a few years ahead of me, so we shall see whose teeth are worse.

Aside from being weird and dysfunctional, my teeth are also resistant to dentists. By this I mean that you cannot expect to fool with one without having something go terribly wrong. It's a domino effect. The greater the effort at repair, the greater the disrepair that results.

Last month I had a tooth pulled (well, part of a tooth--that's all there was). This naturally resulted in dry socket, days of exquisite pain, and a course of antibiotics.

Three days ago I had a root canal. This can be painful, surely, but it is something most people will get through without too much trouble. Yet I find myself once again distinguished by my teeth (or in this case a single tooth). Standing against the best efforts of modern dentistry, this lone tooth, having been rendered dead by the eradication of its roots, nonetheless has managed to strike back in the form of a gross and painful swelling of the entire left side of my face, such that I can actually see my face now without a mirror!

On comes the penicillin--an antibiotic which, as I am just now discovering, makes me feel rather nauseous. An antibiotic which also, apparently, has no effect on my facial swelling.

And here I keep swatting at something in front of my eye, forgetting that it is my own face.

MS and bad teeth. Which is worse? It's a toss up. I wonder if my teeth would be healthy if not for MS. I wonder, in fact, whether I would have MS if not for my teeth.

But this is a question for greater minds than mine.