Adventures in freakdom.
Yesterday, I was Google’s #1 result for “fat retarded people.” Today, I’m like #18.
And I’m strangely disappointed, even though I’ve never actually written about that particular subject.
“You want the remote?” the assistant said, pointing. “You probably don’t want to watch the Cartoon Network.”
I climbed into the big chair and leaned back. “No, thanks. I’m not going to watch TV.”
The assisant—I’m not sure if she was a hygeinist, nurse, or what—hung a napkin around my neck and pulled a tray of bright metal instruments in front of me. She turned on the overhead light, casting me an a glow like a stage actor, and lovingly checked through each of the wicked-looking pointed devices on the tray.
Outside, wind blew through the densely packed trees, swirling leaves like flowing water. The effect was mesmerizing, and wished myself out there instead of in here with all the scary dental instruments. The assistant went behind me to do something and I shifted in the chair, trying to get a little more comfortable.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yep, fine. Just shifting.” I guess people get nervous in the dentist’s office.
She came back to my side and asked me to open my mouth. On my other side, a second assistant appeared, obviously a trainee.
“See how I’m flattening this?” Senior said, showing Junior something that, from my vantage point, looked like a thin piece of wax or putty. Junior intimated that she saw how Senior was flattening it.
“Now watch,” Senior said, and reached into my mouth. “See how I’m just sort of pressing it around the tooth?”
Junior saw.
“Bite down for me,” Senior said. “Just enough to hold it in place. Don’t bite through it.”
I pressed my teeth together and the two moved behind me again. Senior explained something else to Junior but I paid them no mind. There were woods outside, far more interesting than the temporary crown I was about to get. My mind wandered to the ant problem we’ve been having, and inspiration struck.
“Open up,” Senior said. She reached into my mouth, removed the puttylike material, and set it off to the side. Next, she produced a really long cotton swab.
“He’s getting this on number 30, so we’ll need to get two spots.”
She stuck the swab into my mouth and pressed it against the very back, where my lower and upper jaw join. I tasted something medicinal, not at all unpleasant. The area around the swab started to tingle. After a few seconds, she moved the swab up to my gum, very close to the cracked tooth. Whatever was on the swab was running back into my mouth. She pulled the swab out and I swallowed quickly.
“Don’t leave the swab in,” she told Junior. “Because if you do, they end up swallowing and it makes their throat numb.”
Great.
I realized I was low in the chair again and hitched myself up. Senior looked alarmed. She laid her hand on my shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. I’m just twitchy.”
They left me to numb in peace. Duct tape, I thought. That’s the answer. The whole sill has to be replaced anyway. I can just line the bottom part where it’s separated with duct tape instead of trying to keep caulking it.
I lay there for a moment, reflecting on my brilliance and the fact that you really can fix anything with duct tape.
“Ready for your shots?” Dr. P asked, pulling me from my reverie.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
She popped me twice in the mouth, dispensing Novacaine from a big shiny steel syringe. Each time she stuck me, she hit a nerve that caused one side of my tongue to jerk and feel like an electrical current was flowing through it.
“Hmm,” I said, because it was an odd feeling.
Senior, apparently the jumpy one, leaned in. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. The shots just caused nerves in my tongue to fire and it was an unusual feeling.”
She grabbed at my arm again. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yep, fine.”
They left me to my devices once again. On the TV a cartoon kid, whose name is most likely Ed, Edd, or Eddy, floated around in a room, blown up like a balloon (or Violet Beauregard, only not violet) and covered with gray zitty lumps. Another two cartoon kids fired ice cubes at him from a long tube attached to an ice maker. The cubes flew into a hot water bottle on his belly that magically increased in size until it resembled a beanbag chair.
Dr. P returned, sat, and produced the bane of mankind’s existence: the dental drill. She activated it, the high-pitched whine that everyone knows but no one can describe filling the room. Leaning in, she pressed the drill bit to my cracked tooth and the maddening whine filled my head. Small pieces of tooth flew out of my mouth like effervescence from a fresh glass of soda.
“Close your eyes, please,” Senior said. I did.
My head thrummed with the grinding of the drill as it chiseled away at my cracked tooth. I could smell the wisps of smoke I knew were drifting out of my mouth. Time slowed to a molasses crawl, and it began to feel like like I’d always been there, patiently reclined under the pretty doctor with the howling drill in her hand. I lay there in darkness, thinking about how burning tooth and burning vas deferens smelled a lot alike.
Until the drill bit got up under the filling and into the cracked part of my tooth, that is.
If you want to get notified whenever Fred writes a journal entry, this link will do the trick.
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Congrats on actually getting the procedure done. I think I wrote before that I work in a dental office - in the office part of a dental office. I hate the operative chair as much as anyone. I really suggest that you bring a portable CD player with you. Then you don’t have to deal with the whining of the drill.
Love the description though. Oh so accurate!!
Good GOD I’m freaking out just reading this…
Awwww, yeah, baby. :::sitting on the edge of my seat:::
Bonnie: Good GOD I’m freaking out just reading this…
That means I’m doing something right. I was trying to capture the mood.
Aack! I’ve had 3 crowns put in and you have *perfectly* captured my own experiences — especially the feeling that you’ve been there forever and that it will never end.
Your cliffhanger sentence is killing me.
And, this?
“I lay there for a moment, reflecting on my brilliance and the fact that you really can fix anything with duct tape.”
Made me laugh my ass off.
Fred, if you felt any pain at all, then your were not numb from the novicane. I found this out last year when I had my first root canal…. I felt nothing! I told the Dr. how it always hurt when I got a cavity filled, the air hurt, the water hurt, the drilling hurt. He informed me that I must have a high tolarence for the novicane and I was never numb for all those procedures.
I lay there for a moment, reflecting on my brilliance and the fact that you really can fix anything with duct tape.
Books have been written praising duct tape. Ok I bought one.I was in Alaska at the time and it’s a statewide staple.
Loved this line:
“Small pieces of tooth flew out of my mouth like effervescence from a fresh glass of soda.”
It is very descriptive and original.
It is a widely know fact that you only need 2 things to conquer every ‘fixit’ problem — duct tape and WD40. If it moves and it shouldn’t — duct tape. If it doesn’t move and it should - WD40.
Thanks, Lori - I was particularly proud of that sentence. I had a hellacious time coming up with the word ‘effervescence’. I knew how I wanted to describe it, like the little bubbles popping at the top of a soft drink, but that just didn’t sound right. I’d actually given up and was trying to think of another way to describe it when ‘effervescence’ well, bubbled up from down deep in me, and I used it.
ewww! my mouth hurts just reading. I love my dentist. I never feel ANYTHING when I get the shot of novacaine except a pressure from his hand. Never felt any pain with the drilling either. I will have to tell him how great he is next time I see him. I have had terrible dentists in the past where I felt the needle. I guess there is a special tecnique that some dentists use.
I just finished reading “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey. While in drug rehab, he made a trip to the dentist and had root canals, cavities filled, and caps put on…all without any anesthesia or Novocain. He had two tennis balls to hold onto and squeeze when the pain came. I suppose they don’t want to introduce more drugs to an addict and possibly compromise the detox process. Anyway, thanks to reading his descriptions and now yours, I’ll probably never visit the dentist again!
I am never going to the dentist again!
I know the episode of Ed, Edd and Eddy you are talking about. Ed is allergic to bunnies.
Yes, I like Cartoon Network. So?
The James Frey book is phenomenal!! I had to quit reading the dental scene for fear of projectile vomiting. Thankfully your experience was not so horrifying but I can’t wait to read the rest. I am lucky enough at 34 to have never had a cavity or any major dental work, so your vivid description intrigues me.
Oh dear god… *faint*