I saw my dentist yesterday. My dentist has, presumably, been practicing for many years. He probably sees several patients a day, four or five days a week. This is a LOT of patients that he's seen. So you know it's bad when even the dentist is surprised by the condition of my teeth. "Wow, you lost all the filling and part of the tooth -- half your tooth is just gone. What did you DO?" Sigh.
The office was closed (as it evidently is every other Friday), so, since he didn't have any one to assist, he couldn't do the entire procedure of fitting me with a crown (that's Monday), but he did grind the sharp edges off my broken tooth so that it didn't keep scratching the inside of my mouth (for which I am very grateful). After that, at least, it felt mostly normal (except for the sudden sensitivity to cold that I have).