Well, I went to my dentist on Friday to find out why one of my molars
has been hurting when I eat hot food.  He determined that I'd probably
need a root canal, but as it was "a bit calcified" and a rear tooth,
he sent me to an endodontist.

Today, I had what was supposed to be my root canal.  As the
endodontist worked, he said things like, "Wow, the xray showed heavy
calcification, but I didn't believe it" and "I've never seen a tooth
this calcified in my life."

Upshot: he can't find a canal.  No root canal for me.

This is not, apparently, good news.  Here are the possibilities:

Very tiny chance that the calcification is fully complete, meaning
that there's no tissue left to cause trouble.  The fact that it's been
irritating me makes this seem unlikely, but maybe.

Much more likely is that there's a small amount of tissue and that it
will cause recurring infections as long as that tooth's around.

My options:

Crown it and hope it goes away.

Keep trying to find the canal, but he would have to go so far in that
he's worried about perforating the root, which would require
extraction of the tooth.  But if the canal can be found, yay team.

Just go ahead and extract the tooth.  Then either leave the space
empty (ugh) or get an implant ($3000).

I don't feel qualified to make these kind of decisions.  It seems like
it's bad news all the way around.

I hate my teeth.