Soft teeth, hard head

I like to think that I've inherited the absolute best traits from both of my parents. With one GLARING exception - my teeth. Soft teeth, just like your dad, my childhood dentist told me. Mouth full of silver and amalgam to prove him right.

I won't say I've had exemplary oral hygiene habits my whole life. Like most kids, I probably did the minimum required to answer truthfully the parental question, "did you brush your teeth?" But certainly for the last 30+ years, I've been thorough, and as a young 20 something, I got some serious religion.

After two root canals. In three months.

Several days ago, when I started having some significant pain in my very back molar on the top left side, I decided it was probably nothing other than the result of grinding my teeth at night (another bad oral health habit), or just something an even more thorough flossing could take care of. Then on day two of the pain I thought, maybe it's just cold sensitivity. Sunday, day three, when I couldn't chew anything on the left side of my mouth I thought, dangit. Gotta go see the dentist.

Honestly, if I wasn't headed to Houston for the marathon this weekend, my hard head probably would've won out. But having visited a 24 hour dentist in Florida the first time I needed a root canal, I decided that was more painful than a preventive checkup, so off to the dentist first thing Monday morning.

Which quickly turned into: off to the endodontist second thing Tuesday afternoon. Dangit, dangit, dangit.

Root canal, part one, complete. At least I talked him out of part two until after marathon #2 in February. Helps that his wife's a runner. He totally didn't think there was anything weird about running two marathons in three weeks. Just weird that I thought the only thing wrong was that I was grinding my teeth.

Hard head, I guess.