Push, pull and paracetamol

So when the time came, did that tooth want to come out? After three shots of local anaesthetic, and a great deal of pushing, pulling and waggling with implements that might not have been out of place in a Victorian midwife’s kit, the tooth stayed put. Dentist Mike confessed himself defeated, smoothed over the battlefield and handed me a batch of Tylex capsules to be taken “as required”, which he clearly felt they would be. Then he rang up a local oral surgeon, who I went to see this afternoon for a 10-minute consultancy about the next step.

While he was taking my blood pressure, he asked me what I had lectured in, and that led, by some devious route, to a discussion of all the historical novels we had read between us. I think we spent the next 20 minutes comparing notes about books and authors and checking out new ideas on Amazon via his consulting room computer.

Somewhere near the start of the conversation he decided to rearrange tomorrow morning’s schedule so as to deal with the offending item rather sooner than the two weeks suggested by the receptionist. So at 9 a.m. I shall go under, first sedation and then the scalpel. Provided we don’t spend all the time talking about Edith Pargeter.