Black & Decker surgery is what I like to call dental implants,  Drills with various bits, ratchets, and screws sound much more Black & Decker than dentist like.  For those of you who don’t remember, and really why would you?   I had a bone graph done  in August and had to wait several months for it to ‘take.’

Don’t really know what ‘take’ means but I’m assuming it means mesh together or something like that.  So after four months of fattening up my super skinny jaw bone (the ONLY skinny I get is a jaw bone, seriously?) it was time to get the implants started.

My dentist or rather periodontics doc explained that this step would be much easier than the bone graph so I didn’t really think much about it until a couple of nights before when I googled it.  Word from the wise – do NOT google any procedure you are scheduled to have.  This is when I realized that they would need to drill two holes in my jaw bone – now, let’s review that DRILL HOLES in my JAW!

I considered whether teeth were really all that important and couldn’t I just be happy with a set that I can remove at the end of the day?  I decided I didn’t want to put my teeth in a cup at night and I would go on with the surgery…. or procedure as they like to call it.

I showed up and was immediately led back to the lovely room with all the dentist stuff – all manner of sharp, metal things he uses in my mouth.

We started off with three shots that deadened the whole left side of my head…. but sadly there was this one, itty, bitty, miniscule spot that still had feeling and I wasn’t about to let Dentist Dude anywhere near my mouth with a drill until that spot was DEAD as the rest of my head.  Two or three (at this point whose counting) shots later and I’m good.  I can’t feel the left side of my head, my tongue feels huge and my throat feels numb…. but all is good.  Time to move forward.

My Dentist Dude is really wonderful.  Nice guy, loves Sonic ice but advices against chewing it (not that I admitted to that little fault), and plays some great oldies music.  He also loves to explain stuff in dental code which I quickly translate.  He said something like this – we’re going to create a pilot and then enlarge it slowly to accept the titanium posts which we will insert very carefully.

This is what he did – drilled a pilot hole in my jaw bone.  Increased the size of the hole by using bigger and bigger drill bits until he got the hole to the correct size.  Then he used a ratchet to screw in a titanium screw and put a metal cap on it.  Then he did the second one…. oh my!

Throughout the process he stopped to ask ‘Are you okay?’ and my response was ‘Ugh’ with a nod.  I have a drill, a sucking vacuum pipe and a hose stuck in my mouth – how am I supposed to answer?  But at least he cared enough to ask.

There were also many warnings ‘Okay, lots of water coming’ to which I would nod and not notice a thing!  My whole head was numb , I wouldn’t have noticed a garden hose in my mouth.

All of that and  six stitches later I was good to go.

Now I’m home on day two and I look like I’m storing nuts in my cheek. The Novocain wore off (and I was sad)  but  I have pain pills and two additional screws in my head.

Life is good – and if you read my earlier post you know I’m going to be a Grand mom!!  And life is really wonderful!