I Have a Mutant Tooth Growing Into My Skull

June 23rd, 2010Blog2 comments

When I was seventeen I had my wisdom teeth out. I have a small, highly evolved jaw and there wasn’t enough room for all the teeth. “Huh, that’s weird,” the dentist said, “You only have three wisdom teeth.”

“How rare is that?” I asked.

“It’s not incredibly rare but it’s uncommon,” he said. “So what we’ll do is remove the three that we see here and if the fourth one appears later we’ll deal with it.”

Fast forward to today. I went to the dentist after a few years of slacking — dental professionals reading this, please do not blame me, I’ve been busy — and the hygienist scans my head using a new 360 degree x-ray machine. They drop the image onto the screen and my new dentist stares at it, a little surprised and excited.

“Well, that’s bizarre,” he said, “I usually don’t see things like this in here.”

Conversations that begin with such phrasing never end well for me.

“All your wisdom teeth were taken out except for this one right here,” he says, “It appears to be growing upwards into your skull.” He tapped the image. “Right there, see?”

And yes, there it is. Like a bullet slowly growing into my sinuses. “Should I be worried?” I asked.

“We’ll have an orthodontic surgeon take a look at it,” he said, “Don’t worry — it might just be benign and we could just leave it in there.”

Is this the beginning of a new super power? Do I have to register with the government? So many questions, not enough answers!

“By the way,” he said, “Don’t drink so much Diet Coke. Carbonated drinks are bad for you.”