No fun!!!

Last year, my tooth broke in half. I know, I should have gone to the dentist immediately, but it didn't hurt, and well, the dentist is not my favorite person. On Wednesday, I got a pretty bad toothache. It wasn't unbearable, but there was a definite pain in my mouth. So, we made an appointment with the dentist for Thursday.
When Thursday afternoon came, I realized that the pain had died down quite a bit, but I also knew that I still needed to go to the dentist.
We went to the dentist, and well, I thought he was going to tell me that the tooth needed to be filled, or tell me about some minimal procedure. HA!
He looked in my mouth, and then did an X-Ray. I was already tipped off when he came in the room with one of those uneasy smiles on his face. He tiptoed into the room, and said, ever so softly, "I have some bad news. The tooth must come out."
I guess I should consider myself lucky. I have never had any dental procedure worse than an intensive cleaning, with some plaque scraping. So, I shouldn't complain. But, having a needle inserted into your mouth is not a pleasant procedure. I even joked about having arthritis and being afraid of pain. For me, it was more the thought, and the odd feeling of a NEEDLE being inserted into my gums and cheek. Bleh!
Once the numbness set in, and my tears stopped, the dentist had me lay back and told me to close my eyes, saying, "believe me, you don't want to see any more of this."
He got to work, and it honestly seemed like he was scraping at my tooth. The sound was really no worse than scraping. Thirty seconds later, he said to me, "do you want to bring the tooth home?" I thought he was just talking to me to calm me down. The nurse, who had been holding my hand, walked away. That was it! He was done! Honestly, the extraction did not hurt at all.
I finally mustered up the courage to look at the HUGE tooth that had been removed. Wow!
The dentist gave me some ibuprofen for the pain, and sent me away with some gauze to keep in my mouth. Of course, he also sent me away with a note for work, saying that I should not go in on Friday, because I needed to recover.
That was it. We headed out to a tile store and stopped by one of Joern's friends, who is a tile installer. We wanted to know how much he would charge us in comparisson to what the builders are charging us. I have to say, I never would have thought, I'd be running errands immedately after getting a tooth pulled. But, I am a little embarassed by my akward smile, and well, my slightly slurred speech.
I took it easy on Thursday night and Friday. I took a preventative ibuprofen at 7 and then again at midnight. I thought that I'd rather take medicine before I was in pain and not wait. But, I woke up on Friday morning with no pain, so I decided not to take any medicine. Yesterday I had minimal pain, but my mouth still felt a bit raw. Today, everything's great. I'm hoping I'm over the hill now.
I have to say, I am so thankful for this experience. I think if I had a bad experience, I would have a lot more trouble returning to the dentist, and would have huge problems with any future dental procedures.