Dental Care

Going to the dentist has never been my favorite thing. But recently it has fallen so far down on the list that it has slipped into things I wish I never had to do again territory.

I have a new dentist. He is one of those early morning cheerful types. I am not one myself, but am familiar with the sort since I accidently married one. My previous dentist went and retired on me, but before he left he hand-picked this young, enthusiastic guy to inherit his patients. He enters the room with his mantra ‘let’s take good care of you” on his smiling lips, which are parted nicely to display his gleaming white teeth. And then he does. Take good care of us, I mean. Mostly.

This guy once told me he wanted to be a dentist since childhood. He has perfectionistic tendencies. He seems to know what he is doing. And the thing that won me over was when he noticed that my left jaw slips a little and can be painful. He watches that when he’s working and takes care not to let it happen. No other dentist in my long battle with cavities and caps has ever noticed that before. Ever.

And when one of my crowns broke he fit me in as an emergency, to take good care of me.

“I’m scheduled to have surgery next week,” I told him. “Life is really, really complicated right now. Is there anyway you can fix it so I don’t have to do a whole new crown right now?”

His face was full of concern. I heard the staff whispering like a chorus in the hallway: she’s having surgery next week, surgery next week, yes, indeed, surgery next week.

“Let’s take good care of you,” he said. And I must admit, he was my hero that day. He patched the tooth and did a little sanding here and a little sanding there and that old crown fit my mouth better than ever before.

But even good dentists have their days. And my last visit turned out to be one of them.

How bad was it? you may ask.

So bad that I was on my back in a fully reclined position for over three hours.

So bad that the newbie assistant didn’t notice that the cold water she was spraying in my mouth was not making it into the suction thingy but was instead running out the other side of my mouth and down my neck.

So bad that after about 2+ hours the Novocain was wearing off and, for the first time in my life, I had to raise my left hand and point to my mouth with the right to indicate that things were hurting more than I liked.

So bad that bits of the stuff she made me bite into to make a mold somehow ended up everywhere in my mouth, on my face and sprinkled over my clothes. It was swallow them or spit them into the blue paper napkin thing under my neck. I did not swallow them. (To her credit, she did offer me wet paper towels to wash my face.)

So bad that when Newbie handed me a mirror to look at the temporary crown she had labored over I had to ask her what is that pink spot? To which she replied: your gums were bleeding so much that it got mixed in with the acrylic and I tried to fix it but it didn’t work and I can make you a new one if you want.

So bad that the dentist caught me as I was escaping the room and put an Einstein Brothers Bagels gift card in my hand as he apologized profusely for the way they had taken good care of me.

And it is loaded up good, he added with his nice big smile as I headed out with my dripping hair and bleeding gums and new pink crown on my number 8 tooth, right there in the front.

So instead of going to pick up groceries as I had planned, I went home and showered and redid my hair. I put on clean clothes. I took some ibuprofen.

A week later, my mouth is still sore, and no matter how much I brush, my tooth is still pink. Can hardly wait for the follow up visit, so they can take good care of me again.