Regular followers of my biography in progress know that, due to sleep apnea, I roll the dice every time I sleep. Maybe I’ll wake up feeling at least somewhat refreshed. Maybe I’ll wake up feeling no different than when I went to sleep, and feel like I just wasted hours of my life. And maybe I will wake up feeling completely horrible, barely able to think let alone concentrate, and will barely be able to use the bathroom and get something to eat before collapsing back into a fitful, dream-laden sleep that feels like it is baking my brain in the desert sun.

Well, my body has topped itself, because today, I seem to have woken up with a broken tooth.

I already know that I grind my teeth in my sleep. My dentist, who does not like me, told me such. So I guess that is how it happened. But you still have to wonder what the hell is wrong with a person when they can sleep through breaking a freaking tooth. You would think I would at least wake up from the sound.

I’m pretty sure it’s a broken tooth. At first, when I was just waking up, I thought I just had a big piece of food stuck between two of my teeth. This happens to me every once in a while, some bit of something (usually a popcorn hull) get stuck between two teeth and is really hard to dislodge and I end up having to fiddle with it forever to get it out there. And in the meantime, it bugs me.

But as I woke up slowly and the horror dawned, I expore said obstruction in my teeth, feeling it wobble back and forth in a sickeningly telling way, and realized that if it was some piece of food, it was :

1. a very LARGE piece of food… the sort you would notice right away and immediately get out of there rather than play Wii for two hours then nap
2. a very HARD piece of food, like so hard it doesn’t yield at all when I squeeze it between my fingers, and
3. stuck in there REALLY HARD. Like, so hard it feels like it’s embedded in the gums. Still loose and wobbly, but partly stuck in there REAL… real hard.

Plus, I took a look at it in the mirror as best as I could, and it looks disturbingly white and sold and toothlike. So I am pretty sure that, somehow, I cracked a tooth in my sleep and it’s now all dangly and wobbly and fucked up like I was a little kid about a week from losing a baby tooth.

Luckily, it doesn’t hurt. Or rather, it wouldn’t hurt if I could keep my tongue from poking and prodding at it constantly. That makes it hurt a little. Weird instinct, huh? What makes us do that? Is it specifically to help us shed baby teeth when we’re little and then it just never shuts off? Or is it some urge that usually does nothing more but prompt us to clean obstructions out of our teeth with our tongue, but is not smart enough to know a messed up tooth is not an obstruction?

But still, pain or no, this gives me a host of problems which suck particularly bad. Like, how the hell do I eat like this? I kinda have to eat. I’m diabetic, if I don’t eat, my blood sugar crashes, I get very ill, things get very bad, it’s a bad scene all around. But I am scared to eat with a tooth like this in case I make things way worse in some horrible way. Or at least, make the busted tooth finally come all the way out of my head, and it hurts like hell, bleeds like a son of a bitch, or ends up being swallowed and fucking up my insides. Or all three at the same time, for that bonus lightning round of horror feeling.

So, die of blood sugar crash or initiate gory dental horror. It’s fun to choose.

Plus, this means I have to go see my dentist, and he doesn’t like me, because I have really messed up teeth. The fact that I needed braces and never got them (glad I was such a low priority, Mom and Dad), the legacy of very spotty dental hygiene when I was severely depressed, and my habit of eating popcorn seven times a week and hence making a little extra work for the hygenist…. oh, and let’s not forget my worst crime, being poor and hence not able to afford to pay for all the work I need…. makes him all stressed out and angry when I go in there. So I don’t go unless it’s an emergency. Which this is, obviously.

So I have to go see my stressed out dentist. Yay.

Honestly, part of me is really, really tempted to just reach in there and wiggle and tug the damn thing out myself. I’d be risking making things worse, but if my mission was successful and I avoided causing myself brutal agony from a ripped nerve or massive bleeding, I would at least be rid of the thing and be able to eat and such while waiting to see the dentist.

Well, I’m two hours overdue for food. I better go figure out what/whether I can eat.

Thanks, life. You’re a peach.