I hate dentists — have I mentioned that before?
Daniel has long insisted that his dentist is different, the best dentist he’s ever been to, and has been clamoring for me to go see this miracle worker practically since we met. I will happily concede his point; Dr. David Toney is a great dentist and seems to genuinely care about the comfort of his patients. Given that I am very much my father’s daughter when it comes to dental philosophy (as my dad says, “I’ve got money for drugs”), I’m grateful that when I have to sit in the dentist chair, I can do it with a genuinely concerned guy hovering above me. Really. He’s great.
That doesn’t change the fact that I hate going to the dentist. I mean, they could give me $100 just for taking the time to come in, and I’d still sit down in the chair with trepidation.
So I went last week to have my teeth cleaned. Since it was my first time at Daniel’s dentist, they also took a barrage of x-rays — WAY more than I’ve ever had taken at once, and I feel that’s really saying something when you consider how many dentists I’ve been to in my life.
They identified and rank ordered the priorities for my teeth. Like most dentists, Dr. Toney has specific ideas about how to fix the catastrophic mistakes made by the aforementioned long line of dentists before him. Why is it that no dentist ever approves of the work of the one who came before?
Today I went back for the “top priority” problem. The tooth immediately behind the one I had pulled last fall has a few problems, and as I suspected would be the case long before I went in, Dr. Toney wanted to put a crown on it. Since my flexible spending account “convenience” card is currently working — an aberration, I assure you — I figured I’d go ahead and do it, mostly because it means I don’t have to cough up the money out of pocket, and that’s HUGE for me right now, considering I’m now a poor, damned near unemployed graduate student.
Oh. My. God.
I think I had a short-term crown put on one of my back teeth when I was younger, but to be honest I really don’t remember it at all. I do recall I had to go to Springfield (Missouri) to get it done, because my dentist in Mountain Home couldn’t do it. (Of course, I could be misremembering even that.)
But after my experience this morning, I am beginning to think my decades-long hatred of the dentist probably springs from the experience I had when that crown was put on in my youth. Because the experience I had this morning was hideous. Terrible.
I am a great big baby when it comes to dental issues, and I’ll be the first to admit it.
They numbed me up real good and gave me some headphones to listen to. The girl who was doing prep work said they could give me gas if I wanted, and in retrospect I clearly should have taken her up on the offer because I was an absolute wreck of a basket case when I left a couple of hours later. The dentist caught the edge of my lip with the pointy drill thingy early on in the procedure, and while honestly it really DIDN’T hurt all that much — clearly, it wasn’t a great feeling, but it passed quickly, even though I could feel/tell I was bleeding profusely — it was just enough of a trigger to set off the nervousness, anxiety and latent fear I already had swirling around inside of me. I tried SO HARD not to cry, but of course when I get to the mental state where I’m coaching myself not to cry, well, it’s pretty much a done deal. A couple of tears were rolling down my face before the dentist & assistant really realized what was happening, and then I let out a loud chortle that sounded somewhere between a moan and a choke. Then a loud cry. Mind you, I was (this entire time) doing my absolute best job NOT to make noise and cry. But when I heard myself chortle and then cry, well, it was ALL over. I had gauze, four instruments, and a jaw “rest” stuck in my mouth, and yet — talented emotional basket case that I am — I still managed to find a way to sob. Yes, ugly cry. Ooof.
The poor dentist. I’m sure he thought I was in severe pain … they numbed up my lip real good at that point and took a break, but honestly, the pain was all mental. The headphones were meant to block out the noise, but the problem with getting a crown (I now know) is that the noise isn’t the problem; it was the distinct and unmistakeable sensation of my tooth falling apart under the drill that really got to me.
I started shaking — slightly at first, then growing in severity throughout. By the time I left, the receptionist could tell I was shaking so much that she begged me to sit in the reception area for a while to calm down. It wasn’t until then that the dentist’s assistant mentioned the stuff they used to numb me up tends to make people jittery. Thanks for the warning!!
Anyway, when it was all over, Dr. Toney implored me to pinch him back so he’d feel we were even (I refused — seriously, it really DIDN’T hurt all that bad), and then came back with a $10 Chili’s gift card as a way of making amends. Which — again — was really very sweet and thoughtful of him.
I go back after the Hawaii trip to get the permanent crown put on, which they assure me will be a breeze of a procedure. Let’s just hope so.
