Dental Hammer and Chisel
Hill Air Force Base, Ogden, Utah, was my first duty station after tech school at Lowry AFB. In the Spring of 1973, around the time I turned 20 years old, I had a lot of pain in my lower jaw. The dentist I saw on base said I had an impacted molar on the lower right. And while he was removing that, he would remove the one on the lower left. I had the uppers removed several years before.
When I came back the next day, they put me in a chair, gave me the big, old-fashioned Novacaine shots and left me alone, lying back in the chair. I looked to the right at the tray of instruments. There was a really shiny chrome hammer and a few chisels.
Several minutes later, the dentist started working. He took out the left tooth first. Then he broke the right tooth with the chisel and hammer and pulled out the pieces with pliers.
I can still see those tools. I felt pressure when the dentist broke the tooth, but it did not hurt a lot at the time. In the two weeks after it was clear that the right was worse than the left, my jaw was swollen much more on the right than the left.
Today I was talking to the physical therapist who is helping me recover from knee replacement surgery four weeks ago. He said the pain I am experiencing is to be expected. I said, "Yes, cut my bones with a saw and hammer in titanium rods, and I know there will be pain for a while." I then told him that the knee replacement was not the first time for me getting my bones hammered. He smiled at the story of the dental hammer and said, "That's an interesting way to look at it. But you probably don't want to tell everybody about getting your teeth and bones hammered."
He's right. But I could definitely tell other veterans.
