Going to the dentist is usually easy and relaxing for me. They just clean my teeth, tell me how to live my life with a healthier mouth, and talk about the weather. I get a free toothbrush, floss, and these stringer things that look like giant sewing needles but made of flexible plastic and the color blue so that I can floss around my permanent retainers in my mouth.
Growing up I did not have any cavities. Ever. I think I might have had one once when I was a teenager. However, when I was done with high school and chose not to go to college I was booted off my mother's medical and dental insurance plan. Something about not being in college and working a real job caused the government to think that I am responsible enough to take care of myself. So for about four years I had no health insurance of any kind and did not go to the doctor or the dentist. I then at the ripe old age of 22 decided to go to India for school and in going to school once again I could be on my mom's insurance finally. That didn't take effect until after I left though, so after my first three months in India I came back for Christmas for 13 days and had my mom schedule a physical, travel clinic, and dental appointment during that short window of time.
Going to the doctor was fine, I was healthy, blah blah blah. The travel clinic nurse couldn't believe that I already lived in India for three months without Malaria pills. I knew the threat before I went. I just didn't have the money to go to the doctor for malaria resistance drugs, but upon actually having insurance and going I found out that travel clinic is not covered by health insurance because it's elective stuff. Whatever! This is God's call on my life! It's not elective! I must obey Him! Also, when I told her what city I was living in she was all, "OMG! That area has the biggest threat of malaria!!! How are you malaria free??!?!" So, she perscribed me six months of malaria medication and I took it for like 2 weeks when I got back. I cannot do anything daily for more than two weeks. This is a proven truth for my life. Birth control? Not going to happen. I will always be pregnant when I am married. No, I'll just get the implant thing in my arm. That's what I hope.
So, after being offered all these optional shots for rare diseases I might catch if I'm in a small sewage pond in the middle of a valley surrounded by goats and cows with no sign of human beings within a 300 mile radius of my body, I finally went home glad I didn't have malaria and now after coming back from the six month stay I feel invincible to the malaria virus! I lived in India for nine months and did not catch it at all! I had thousands of mosquito bites but was a legend.
Back to the real reason I'm writing this: The Dentist. I went to the dentist during Christmas and found out that I had six cavities. Yes, I said six. I could not make an appointment at that time to get them filled in the next five days before I headed back to India, so I agreed to come back in August when I would return and get them filled then. If you know me, you know I'm a procrastinator and so I finally went back to the dentist two weeks ago, May. Seven months after I said I would, and one year and five months after they discovered the cavities. You can imagine my mouth would be much worse, and it was. I got a cleaning first to assess the situation and found out my mouth didn't think five was enough and so three more had moved in. I now had eight cavities to be filled. They couldn't even do it all in one session! They had to schedule two separate appointments for me!
I went in for the first session of fillings and they put this numbing stuff on my gums to avoid the pain of novocaine needles piercing my mouth. This stuff tasted much like that spray stuff you can buy at Walgreens when you have a sore throat. So the doc comes in and takes out this super needle that has no end of novocaine. It is connected to a tube which forever supplies it with novocaine. When he brings it out it makes this "bing" noise over and over and when he sticks it in my gums it continues this bing noise until it feels enough has been injected into me and then it sounds like a short steel drum solo from the islands. He sticks me a few times on the upper right and left sides of my mouth and soon my whole top row of teeth and face is numb. I get to enjoy the feeling of the drill a little later when he finishes up the right side of fillings and then moves onto the left side which had now already been injected with novocaine at the same time as the right, so it has worn off a little. He moves onto drilling the very back tooth and a sharp pain shoots through my body and I shoot my arms up in the air and freak out. He then sticks the novocaine needle in my gums again, but this time without the pre-numbing stuff and I go insane. I no longer can control what my mouth and head is doing. My head is shaking and tears are welling up in my eyes. I can't imagine what I looked like to my doctor.
Finally, the novacaine sets in and he begins drilling again, but this time I'm almost expecting the pain to happen again so I am sweating and my head is still shaking, but I don't feel anything. Next he needs to put novocaine in the very back of my mouth to numb the bottom and that hurt so bad. It felt like he was sticking that needle into my jaw bone and scratching it around in there. Then he started on the bottom. He finally finished the last filling almost two hours after beginning. That was only five fillings. I had to go back in two weeks to get three more. I was traumatized during this visit. I never wanted to set foot in that dental facility let alone any other one ever again.
Today was that second, dreaded appointment of doom. Apparently they have this sedative pill they can give you before they start the work so that you don't really remember anything and you don't end up labeling the dentist as a terrifying place or person, however calling and requesting that pill the morning of your appointment doesn't fly. I settled with nitrous oxide this time and was determined to have them put it on "high" the entire time. I got in and brought my iPod so that I could be somewhat calmed by the soothing sounds of Buddy, Ian McIntosh and some low-key Hindi music. They put this thing over my nose which pumped me full of laughing gas. I was not in the mood to laugh, but it made me feel like one would feel after they've had just enough beer to almost be drunk. I wish I could have a tank of nitrous oxide at home and do that instead of downing 600 calories in beer to get the same feeling. The jamaican novocaine needle came out again and it was over in a matter of what seemed like minutes, but just a few seconds. Then it all went numb and he drilled and then filled and it only took a little under one hour. This experience was much better, but I will still get that pill next time. Seriously. I have been scarred for life.
On the bright side, I have been terrified into a daily floss routine and will use as much fluoride in my mouth as I possibly can without poisoning my body. I never want to have another cavity again as long as I live. I would rather get malaria or TB.
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