Grab a bite of this

The husband broke one of his two front teeth last weekend. When five missed calls and two smses over a short span of time registered on my mobile, I knew something was up. He’d slipped on a puddle of water during basketball practice and before he could react, all 80 kg of him went hurtling towards the ground, enamel on concrete, the impact shattering his front tooth in half, the disengaged half in several pieces on the ground.

Dental salvage is a four-stage, month-long process and he’s already got through the first part of it. The intact half of the tooth is not loose, as I’d feared, so it does not have to be extracted. A crown is to be made to cover the broken tooth and that would take a few weeks to make. The damaged nerves that were causing much pain and discomfort were pulled out, straggly veins bleached of colour because of the anasthesia, like limp beansprouts without the heads. The wound was washed out and a temporary tooth was joined to the broken one with adhesive. The dentist had discoloured the temporary tooth so that it blended it well with the husband’s other teeth. A very professional job done, I must say. In the meanwhile, biting down with the front teeth is unthinkable.