It was Friday morning and it felt like I woke up to a hazy dream, one which I didn’t ever feel I would experience again! This feeling of uncertainty and uneasiness was interrupted by the abrupt reality that I had a DENTIST APPOINTMENT! It was 7 am and I lay in my bed trying to remain clam and push off the gross feeling of anxiety crawling under my skin. My alarm rudely interrupted my weak attempt of calmness both for the Dentist and the reality of life. I sprang from my bed and took a quick shower, threw my hair up in what looked like a rats nest, got dressed and made my way downtown. On the way to the dentist this voice who appears to often be correct – was telling me that I will be ok and that people get caps all the time – I will be fine. This calming voice did not seem to make my worry go away, but it did make me feel a little bit better.
I arrived at the Dentist 8 minutes late, a small part of me was hoping that the Dentist would be ill or that I would be too late. This was not the case, both the Hygienist and the Dentist were waiting patiently by the chair of doom!
I think I should take this time to explain how I got to this place. Let’s rewind- I was 15 years old and at a Provincial Championship for Karate. It was my final gold medal fight and I was running high on adrenaline. The feeling of being in a ring with one other person to fight, who has trained just as hard as you, who wants it as bad as you, and will do anything to get it, is a feeling I will never forget. The ref gave the signal to start and the fight began – I remember like it was yesterday, I did a combination jab, roundhouse and hit to the face and was awarded my second point. The point was awarded and the signal was given to start again – My foot slipped as I was attacking to the abdomen and my whole body moved forward my face was left totally unprotected. Crystal was the name of the girl I was fighting – she and I were always fighting for gold. When my face leaned forward Crystals fist made contact with my mouth. I felt sharp pain in my mouth and could taste the blood dripping on to my tongue. The Ref gave the signal to go back to our perspective sides of the mat. I turned around and when I tried to open my mouth I found that my braces had gone threw my mouth guard and they were embedded in my upper lip. I peeled my braces from my lip and pulled out the mouth guard out and kinda lost my cool – long story short it left my front left tooth dead and my pride and gums very bruised (I did win gold!).
Ok back to Friday – I was walking down the hall to the chair of doom. I sat trying to hide my anxiety and smiled at my Dentist. She leaned the chair back and began matching the colour of my teeth. Once this annoying, but necessary task was complete they put these medal clamp things in my mouth to force my mouth open to take pictures. This metallic tasting barbaric tool pinched the sides of my mouth and forced tears in my eyes – lucky for me I was wearing hot dentist sunglasses. I was relieved when I was able to remove the metallic from my mouth. I turned my head to ask the dentist something and witnessed a disturbing sight – a giant needle that I was certain was meant for an elephant, 2 in fact! Just as I was about to say something the Hygienist stuck a stick under my upper lip with some disgusting tasting gel meant to ‘numb the pain’ of the elephant needles. Nearly 2 minutes later I witnessed the giant needle heading for my face and desperately closed my eyes. The needle was shot above the gum line on the right side of my face, the pain was sharp and burned as the fluid rushed into my flesh. I could feel my lip and face begging to fill and swell with the anaesthetic. I braced myself for the first one and thought that the second needle would be better because I would be frozen! I was wrong the second needle did not hurt has much on entry, however the fluid made my flesh feel as though it were slowly stretching apart. Once she was done freezing me, the Dentist then decided to take a good look at my tooth. After a good three minutes of looking at my tooth, and my flesh feeling like it was tearing, she said she wanted to talk to me.
She put my chair in the up right, and locked position, and proceeded to tell me that she could not do the cap on my tooth. She felt that she would not do my smile justice. ’I am not a cosmetic dentist and I think you need a porcelain tooth based on the whiteness of your teeth, how you bite and where the tooth is’ The words ‘are you freaking KIDDING ME?’ escaped from my partly frozen bulbous face. She began to apologize and explain that her skill set is not strong enough to do this kind of work. She apologized for making me go through everything that we had done and she sent me on my merry way with a referral to another plumber in a lap coat! Although I appreciate her honesty, I was very upset that I had struggled with the experience of anxiety and now had a painfully swollen liquid filled face. It looked like plastic surgery wrong!
I left the Dentist’s office and fought back tears to my car. I was not sure if I was crying because of all the anxiety, the needles, because I avioided my actual tooth being drilled down to a peg that day, or because I was going to have to face it all again with an unfamilar dentsit.
I won’t know when I will actually get this prolonged procedure, but I am certainly not looking forward to it!
Entries (RSS)