According to the X-rays, God may just have intervened -- because the dentist's 'burr' as she called it (a tool maybe 3/32" wide and a little over 1/2" long or so) didn't show up on the films. I was having a tooth filled today, and the burr came out of the driver WHILE she was using it...I felt something unusual bounce around in my mouth, but lying back as I was with my mouth wide open I can't say for sure whether or not it went down my windpipe/my esophagus/or was sucked up by the assistant's suction tube. At the time the dentist said it must've been sucked up, or I would've felt it, so I said OK. Anyway, I paid, came home, and was going to forget about it -- but then I got a call from the dentist's office: they had torn the room apart and couldn't find the tool (I'm sure they looked in the reservoir for the vacuum, the most obvious place). They wanted me to go get my chest and stomach X-rayed ASAP as a precaution (and on their dime, too). I asked my family for prayer, and of course prayed myself, and a couple hours after lying in the dental chair I was lying on an X-ray table, wondering where (and if) the little tool would be found. Praise God, the films didn't show the tool in me anywhere. In between appointments I read up on the Internet about one case where repeated surgeries had been done on a patient after a similar case...so major WHEW!

Blessings,
James