Jonny McCambridge: The dental extraction – the toothache may be gone but something much worse has been left

A thick drill passes my eyeline. The dentist tells me that I will ‘hear and feel’ sound. I consider this is an unusual choice of words, but my thought process is quickly interrupted as the blade begins its work.

The sensation of the drilling travels right along my jawbone, inside my ear and seems to vibrate my brain. Again, I am forced to concede that the dentist’s diction is completely accurate. I am having a tooth extracted.

This is a journey which began last summer when I developed toothache. The pain has remained since then. At its worst, it has been sleep-disturbing and the bringer of misery.

At its mildest, it is still there, nagging away, like an unwelcome house guest who just won’t call a taxi. I have changed the way I eat because of the toothache, changed what I eat. I have forgotten what it is like to exist without oral pain.

My dentist has tried a number of remedies. Decayed parts of the offending molar have been drilled away and replaced with filling. Root canal work has been attempted, but still the pain persists. In the end, the dentist recommended an extraction after telling me that any further work would leave little of the original tooth left.

But the process is not straightforward. Because it will be a tricky extraction, involving the splitting of the gum, I am referred to a specialist dental clinic. The letter comes in the post telling me that they are currently unable to offer me an NHS appointment, but that I will be added to the waiting list when one becomes available.

The correspondence tells me that the current waiting list is 10 months. Alternatively, if I want to pay for the procedure, I can be offered an appointment sooner.

I am left with a choice. At first, like a raggle-trousered philanthropist, I gamely decide that I will wait for an NHS appointment.

However, a couple of further sleepless nights quickly changes my mind. The simple process of eating is becoming more and more difficult. I am not sure I can bear another year of this.

I phone the clinic and tentatively ask how much quicker it would be if I were to pay for an appointment. The receptionist breezily informs me I can be offered a slot that very day.

And so, here I am. The dentist is telling me that the top of the tooth has gone and she is now working on the three deep roots. She tells me how well I am doing, although in truth I can feel my arms trembling and have to resist grabbing on to the nurse to my right for comfort.

The two resume a conversation with about their plans for lunch. One is going to go to the local garage while the other has brought sandwiches in. Egg and onion.

The roots are removed. I catch a quick glance of one as the dentist takes it away – thick, long, reddened and slightly curved. It is difficult to comprehend that this was deeply inserted within my gum just seconds before, a part of me.

I am aware of liquid within my mouth and trickling onto my cheek. The nurse cleans the blood away while the dentist inserts stitches. She pulls the dark thread tight as she sews the gum back together, working quickly and efficiently.

Then it is over. I am upright and led to a stool where the dentist gives me post-surgery advice.

“How are you feeling?" she begins.

“Urhh…..urhhh.” I nod my head to show I am ok. A combination of my frozen mouth, a gum full of stitches and a general sense of being battered means I am not at my most loquacious.

She tells me what I should avoid eating and drinking while I heal, how to manage the inevitable pain and the best ways to prevent infection in the wound. I nod along.

She goes on.

“Because the tooth was very close to your sinus there is a small chance that a hole will develop into the sinus.”

“Urhh? Urhh?”

“If this happens then you might notice when you drink liquid it may end up coming down your nose.”

“Urhh? Urhh? Urhh?”

The dentist reassures me that this is nothing to worry about and that it can be fixed with a simple procedure. I don’t like the sound of it. She continues.

“With this in mind, we recommend that you avoid blowing your nose for the next week.”

"Urhh?”

I am led out of the room and to the front desk where I pay for the procedure. As I leave the clinic there is a thought I can’t shift, pounding away repeatedly with as much force as the toothache which has tormented me for many months.

"I need to blow my nose...I need to blow my nose”.

Under normal circumstances I am not sure I ever think much about blowing my nose. While I have a packet of tissues in my pocket, their use is not frequently required, except when I have the cold.

However, being told that I cannot blow my nose has created an Everest in my mind. If I had not been given the nasal advice, then I am sure I would have entertained no such desire.

Now, as I buy painkillers in the chemist, it is impossible to think about anything else.

The end of my nose is twitching and I feel my hand moving repeatedly towards the tissue in my pocket.

I am not sure that I can endure a week of this torture. I am almost nostalgic for the toothache.