Behind the Ironic Column

Just the thought of it makes my stomach clench.  Better Tusko than me having extreme dental surgery.  I’ve been through plenty of that kind of thing myself and have the scars to prove it, but my periodontal escapades are nothing compared to what Tusko, the Asian bull elephant at the Oregon Zoo, has been through. 

Like so many dental troubles, his started many years ago when his tusk was damaged.  His right tusk was successfully removed but for some reason his caretakers at the time couldn’t remove the broken left one.  They decided to saw it off flush with his lip and let it heal itself.  It didn’t heal and has been infected – causing the kind of discomfort if not downright pain that none of us like to have.  And he’s here at our zoo on breeding loan – hard to think about romance when your teeth hurt. 

Maybe I’m personalizing just a little – but I have vivid memories of a few rounds of dental surgery I went through several years ago when I lived in Virginia.  The endodontist was wonderful – if he hadn’t been I’d never have stayed put in that chair.  I’m not going to describe what he did – there could be children reading – but he fixed my problem and gave me a substantial number of pain-reducing medications on my way out the door.  So I went home – carefully not taking the freeway since I was driving myself—and went to bed.   As promised, the medication put me to sleep and I didn’t feel anything for several hours.  The unexpected drawback was that my body decided the time had come to announce its allergy to penicillin.   So the morning after my long afternoon at the dentist, I woke up with hives over my whole body in addition to a very tender mouth.  I had expected to go in to work after my night’s rest – maybe going in a little late if I felt bad.  But this wasn’t in the game plan at all.  I couldn’t even get dressed – even the thought of clothes touching my skin sent me into fits of itching.   So I called the dentist, stopped taking the drugs, and let my boss know that I wouldn’t be in after all.   Luckily the leftover dental pain wasn’t too bad and the hives gradually faded.  Still it was more excitement than I wanted.

Tusko’s version, complete with gigantic dental tools and a huge waterbed for a dental chair, is available in a video at the Oregon Zoo web site.  As far as I’ve heard, he didn’t develop any allergies and is happily doing without that infected tusk.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS