So Long, Good Riddance!

I have (had) a tooth that has been causing me grief for at least a decade, maybe two. I have lost count. It first manifested itself as a cavity in my youth, probably sometime during Junior High. Then, when I was in college, I think the filling broke or some such nonsense and I had to have a root canal. I moved to Utah, literally on the day they finished up with the root canal (my family waited in the car in the parking lot) and was given a permanent filling to hold it over until I could get a crown. No insurance and several years later, the filling finally gave up the ghost and I had no choice but to fork over the hard-earned cash for a crown. A year or two later, the crown broke, fell off, gave up the ghost and I had to fork over yet more cash for yet another crown!! This time at least I had some insurance, but it still was several hundred dollars as insurance only covers crowns at 50%. Ugh! So, now here we are less than a year later and being caused much grief over this stupid tooth, yet again. So, another trip to the dentist to find out the problem, and a referral to the Endodontist. The endontist says the only thing he could do is get another root canal, but is not convinced it will solve the problem and it would be extremely difficult to do under the circumstances and probably only has a less than 20% chance of succeeding. He believes there is a crack somewhere in my tooth and all the work I have done has only been a bandaid and not a solution. His suggestion is just to pull the tooth, it is a molar way in the back top of my mouth, Tooth #2 for those of you aware of such things. So, today I went back to the dentist and had the tooth pulled. Several shots and good yanks later, I am now sporting a nice hole in my mouth. I am thinking I should have saved the dumb thing since it has been such a huge part of my life and has cost me so much money. Hopefully I made the right decision as I now have a huge hole in my mouth that bled for hours and caused me to have ice cream for dinner. (Not really complaining about that part!) Hopefully it will heal with no problems and won't ruin my vacation this weekend. :o( So long, crappy tooth. You have caused me much grief and undeservedly so!