My lipth are numb and I'm thalking funny

I just returned from the dentist and I'm contending with that horrible numb sensation one experiences after having huge needles full of Novocaine injected into your face. Hopefully it will wear off soon. I had to have a cavity repaired, which developed as a result of a botched repair of a damaged tooth that broke in two after I was in a car accident five years ago. As many of my friends know, I was hit by a car while jogging around campus at the University of Alberta, only a week after my physical therapist had given me the go-ahead to start running again due to shoulder and neck injuries sustained when I was rear-ended ten months earlier. Anyway, I hit my face on the hood of the woman's car and it broke two of my teeth in half. The dentist repaired them, but apparently failed to repair a small cavity before doing so. The result: a cavity got to develop, completely undisturbed, under all that filling material. Today, my dentist took it all apart and did his best to fix it. He's concerned that due to the size of the cavity and its proximity to the nerve, it may require a root canal at some point in the future. Still, he felt it was worth trying to preserve the tooth without the root canal first. Only time will tell whether the root canal will be necessary.

I'm a big ol' chicken when it comes to dentists so I'm going to keep my fingers crossed. My dentist has been very good so far. I must admit, I was more than a bit skeptical when I started going to see him in December. I bought into this student dental plan that allows you to go see one of the dentists at Strong Medical School's dentistry program. So, it means all the procedures are done in this big, round room full of about twenty cubicles (I kid you not!) where twenty different dental procedures are being performed at any given moment. It's very industrial and I was uncertain about having a dental student drilling into my mouth. However, my dentist has been very good so far. The down side--he's graduating and will be leaving in about a month. Sigh. The other problem is that it sometimes takes weeks and weeks to get appointments. I've been scheduling cleanings, x-rays, check-ups, and fillings since December and only now am I coming to the end of my treatment plan. I did have three fillings, but considering I'd not been to a dentist in several years and I've always been prone to cavitites, that's not as bad as I expected things to turn out. I'm hoping that my dentist will fix my two remaining small cavities in one appointment once I get back from Europe. I really don't want to have to worry about getting used to someone new. And I've heard from other students that some of the dentists who work out of there are a bit sketchy!