Alternate name: "Tooth Be Told"
Dottie had already warned the hyperactive Air Tractor about it long before. Before racing, before firefighting, before he had even decided on what it was he wanted to do with his life. Of course, back then it didn't really matter. Naturally, the orange and white plane shrugged it off. "I'll get to it when it happens". They hadn't even shown up yet, let alone begun the process of trying to break through. But the day was coming, and they would have to find a way to plan accordingly.
It hadn't begun showing signs of time being near until the beginning of June, in the year following his firefighting certification. Despite flying through hoops to get that certificate, and then even more to keep that title sustained, Dusty was managing to keep it up, managing two jobs equally. But it brought with it a lot of stress and tension, and a full set of wisdom teeth trying to break through were not helping matters.
That was his excuse the first time the signs showed up. He just blamed it on the overworking. Of course, knowing Dusty, he'd never slow that down, or try to, so even if it was, there was nothing they could do about it. But then it started getting worse, slowly but steadily. General anesthetics could barely cut it anymore.
Dottie knew as well where things were surely headed in the next month. Nearly every check-up, she'd catch him grinding his teeth, clearly in irritated discomfort. Whatever stress chews from racing season he still had were worn thin and torn up in many areas - even ones that were supposed to have lasted a long time still.
"You know he's a long ways out," She finally told him, "You're going to have to schedule an appointment inow/i while you're still ahead."
"Yeah, I'll do it in a bit." He told her.
Well, he always said things like that.
Dottie was certainly a great mechanic, and especially great to have close by and at greatly discounted appointments, but she didn't work with an aircraft's teeth. That profession was left up to another to take care of, and unfortunately for the lot of them, the nearest place that they had from their home in Minnesota that was decent wasn't even iin/i Minnesota. It was over in Wisconsin, a ways south-east of them. Dr. Steven McLaren was one of the best Dottie, Chug, Sparky, Dusty and even Skipper had ever met. Don't let the sleek-looking exterior fool you though, the guy was all too well invested in his job to want to do anything else with his life. He too was doing more than he was built for, in a manner of speaking.
Eventually, Dottie and Skipper both decided to up and set up the appointment for him. The kid tended to be a bit on the scatter-brained side more often than not anymore, but who could blame him, really. Times were busy now, with him and Mayday up to their eyes renovating the fire station in Propwash and on a hunt for more firefighters to be stationed, and having races to compete in on top of it, not to mention all the papers and medical records and registrations and headaches that went with every race on the circuit. Skipper only hoped he'd wake up before he crashed in the burning pit of overworking oneself to death - again. He'd say Blade could talk sense into him, but...well, in all fairness he was probably worse...actually, scratch iprobably/i out of that...
McLaren was pretty swamped too with patients, and Dusty felt he was "in no rush" for an appointment. Not that he'd get any special attention from celebrity status there anyways. Still, the earliest time they could set up was in the beginning of July, and the longer time wore on, the worse things got.
Most all vehicles had wisdom teeth, slightly less frequent in forklifts, pitties, and certain other terrestrial vehicles, but normal all the same. And the 'norm' for those who did have them was to get them pulled out, as soon as possible. There was a pretty high chance they would end up growing in crooked, or otherwise crowding up the available space and causing a lot of pain.
Most vehicles went between 15 and 21, in the window where the teeth began to push upwards and against the gums at the back of their jaws, but not so late that they had broken teeth or crammed them all together too tightly. Dusty was a little past that threshold of the "get it done before it hurts" age, but to be fair his teeth were a bit slower to develop than they had thought. Nearly 27 now, the wisdom teeth were finally at the point of actually beginning to ido/i something, and so it would be now or never to have them pulled.
As the latter half of June wore on, anesthetics were more steadily used and increased to the highest amount Dottie was willing to give him without sending him overboard. The day before the end of the month, they broke out the icepacks. It was especially bad at night, it seemed, when there wasn't the other things of life to occupy his mind. Skipper didn't think he was even sleeping anymore, more just laying miserably with an icepack crammed against his cheek all night.
July eighth couldn't come any faster, and the young plane was, almost in a literal sense, chomping at the bit to get going. Dusty and Skipper flew out together in the morning, planning to get an transport back - Dusty wouldn't be able to fly on his own for at least twenty-four hours after the main anesthesia wore off. What else was new.
They showed up in Ladysmith before it was even eight o'clock, landing in the Rusk County Airport, or KRCX, at seven forty-eight. McLaren's office wasn't far from the airport, but it was a bit of a ride there. At least there wasn't a lot of ground-traffic in such a small town.
The appointment wasn't scheduled to be until nine, but there was still some paperwork to be gone through, and the up-front payment. Skipper could practically hear the young plane's tanks doing somersaults; because of the anesthesia, he wasn't able to eat or drink anything eight hours prior to the appointment - and Skipper was pretty certain that he hadn't ever gone more than about four without snacking on something. What got him to Wisconsin was leftover fuel from before that time period.
About eight thirty or so, McLaren was already expecting his next patient. There were some pre-done things, a scan, and a general assessment of what was going to occur. Though still clearly nervous, Dusty did everything as he was told, asking a couple questions here and there where he may have been confused or concerned. As expected, the x-rays clearly showed four fully-developed wisdom teeth in the back corners of his jaws, two on the top and two on the bottom, just under the gums.
Skipper stayed by his side up until the actual setup for the surgery. At that point, he'd been asked to leave the room.
"Take care, I'll pick you up in a few hours." The war bird said as he departed them. He wasn't sure if the half-chuckle of a response was genuine, or forced as a cover-up for the feelings of sudden terror. He had the mind to believe it was probably the latter. "You'll be alright, he knows what he's doing." He added as comfort.
He vividly remembered the discussion with the nurse about all of the do's and don'ts after the fact. He could recall every last detail of the setup before the anesthesia had been administered. But after it had, all time seemed to have stopped, as it often did when he was knocked out. Darkness and nothingness came back to claim him, and for the life of him he had no memory of the event of the surgery.
Well, except for that one moment when he woke up. He fuzzily remembered someone working on something on a table next to him, and then the "oh, crap-" of McLaren, having noticed his patient was somewhat conscious, and then the pull of the anesthesia again and the fading back to darkness. Apparently the dose that his inevitably inexperienced assistant had given him wasn't quite enough to keep him out completely. Guess they hadn't taken into account how many times the same stuff had gone through his system before. Thankfully, that was the only incident, and it hadn't happened iwhile/i a tooth was being taken out - rather in between removals, lucky for him.
The rest of the surgery went smoothly, and around noon Skipper had been called back to recollect the patient, still coming out of drugs and now with four teeth less. Transport home had already been arranged for them by the time he got there, so it was just a matter of persuading the rocky plane back to the airport. That of the still sound mind thanked McLaren for the service again, adding that they would surely be back again for everyone else's dental appointments, though probably not one this big for a long time.
"We'll be here!" He replied.
When the two planes made it back home, the beginning of the next six weeks began - lots of gauze-stuffing and salt water rinsing awaited him, but at least it was leading him back to being able to work without as much pain and discomfort. And sure enough, less than two days after the surgery, he was back to being his old self again around town, to everyone's - his own included - collected relief.
They were glad that even past the general age range, the crop duster recovered quickly and rather effortlessly. He was officially deemed able to eat solid food again after about four weeks, and after six he was completely back to being himself, save for not having to deal with the jaw pains. That was one more life-hurdle crossed off the list.
Notes:
-You will never have any idea how long it took me to come up with the name "Dr. Steven McLaren". It gives me heartburn to think about.
-McLaren Automotive is actually a thing, they make sports cars. Hence McLaren's "sleek looking exterior" one should not be fooled by. Specifically, a McLaren 650S. I dunno, they looked cool so I thought why not for a side character.
-It's writings like these that make me wonder what situations might have occured when these same things inevitably happen to all the other characters. At such a younger age, what would Skipper have been like getting his out? Or, gosh, Blade even? And what characters might have gotten lucky and not had to deal with them at all? (this topic open for discussion in the comments to any chatty readers)
-I had wisdom teeth pulled, if that wasn't already obvious from the familiarity of all of…"this". And I had never had any kind of surgery or big dentist appointment before, so yes I freaked the hell out. But I am SO glad I got knocked out for it all. All I remember was sitting in the chair, and then hours later being put into a wheelchair and stuck into the passenger seat of the car. And I, being like my father with crooked as heck teeth, had a molar removed as well that day. It got broken and I was in no mood to spend a lifetime trying to save it. But hey - no more pain. Or ice packs on my jaw.
-"stress chews" is actually a friendly nod to someone else's headcanon [BobblyChicken's]. It's basically a chew-toy for airplanes in otherwise stressful situations - i.e. the racing industry - as a way to keep their buzzing minds occupied physically.
-I wonder how many random places I'll learn otherwise useless things about in Wikipedia after writing all of these stories...yes I pick random, REAL locations for most of my story settings. I don't know, it feels wrong and somewhat disrespectful not to. It's like a writing etiquette.