A broken tooth

My bottom back left molar tooth had been bothering me since October 2005 when I chewed the wrong way and my upper molar crashed quite painfully on it's opposite tooth. It has happened quite frequently ever since and the spikes of pain when this happened leave tears in my eyes. Because the pain would remain for a while and usually when I'm eating a meal, I would have to use my right side of the mouth, which it then causes too much strain on my gums and now my right side of my top part of the teeth (gum area) are acting a bit. Talk about bad things becoming worse.

But worse it did get. As of last night, Wednesday, I checked my tooth in question in front of the mirror because the crashing of teeth happened again. I thought the tooth was loose, that would be bad. Well, it was loose, and when I prodded it with a little more pressure, a part of the tooth, maybe a little bit less than a quater the size of the said tooth, broke off. But it's still there as the chip runs into the gum. I was afraid of completely taking it off as it is right beside a filling, and I'm not sure how far inside the gum it is. I thought it needed professional help.

More problems ensued. I come in to work today and basically just try to take care of this broken tooth business. I find out that the insurance I have with the company group plan does not include dental care. I'm already paying a little over 100euros for being in the benefit plan, and now I find out that I will have to pay an additional 12euros to be covered in the dental insurance; to rub salt in the open wound, I only get 50% coverage, or 75% depending on the actual activity to be done to my tooth. Luckily (I say luckily because this is about the only gem in this headache), I can apply to be included in the dental insurance up until May 1 and can do so even after I get billed for a dental cost. But story isn't finished: Getting a dental appointment for emergency consultation was next to impossible; I practically had to beg to get one. It would have been better to get an appointment today, the day after I found the chipped tooth, but the best I could do was an appointment the next day on Friday in the morning. I'm very fearful of how much that will cost, as it will have to come out of my own pocket first, and will not even get all of it back from the insurance. I don't have a clue what the dentist will have to do to repair the damaged tooth.

To top this money issue, just hours before I found the chipped tooth, I was able to finally order my Sony Ericsson W800i cell phone (300euros, unlocked) through my Polish friend. So now I'm thinking I might have to sell that nice phone due to this emergency situation with my tooth. I don't want to, but I'll wait and see.

To think that my unplanned and very costly one-way trip from Dublin to Amsterdam after St Paddy's weekend set me back up financially, this is severely testing my limits of sucking it up!!!

What a tragedy. Now I won't be able to enjoy BBQ so much, being limited to probably chicken, on Saturday at Chege's house. I was so looking forward to steak.