Thank you Bryanna,
You have been a huge help, and I greatly appreciate it. As of now, I have an appt. in Miami on friday with the oral surgeon to extract the tooth. She saw the xray, and says it will be OK for me to fly home the following wednesday. The impressions were taken this morning of my teeth for the implant later down the road. My health insurance is from Miami, and I have a house there that my daughter lives in with her best friend, who works for the oral surgeon, which is why I'm going there for this procedure. I'm sure there are great oral surgeons here in NC, I just didn't have the luxury of time to find one on short notice. I do have another tooth that had a root canal several years ago, I guess I should think about having that out as well? No problems so far, but now I can see just how fast things can go from being fine to severe in a matter of days. Thank you again for all the information, knowledge definitely IS power!