Adventures in Melissa's Life: The Dentist

I'm not a fan of going to the dentist. Who is? I'd rather go to the "women's doc" before I go to the dentist. Yes, I hate it that much.

But it's one of those things that must be done, so off I trudged last week to get some cavities filled. I thought it would be pretty routine, having done this before (I blame my genetics for my bad teeth!). Only something wasn't right. Every time he drilled on one particular tooth, I felt it. And I didn't like feeling it because IT HURT.

He kept adding novacaine, which made me want to curl up with a blanket and pillow and pass out. He tried drilling again. More pain. More novacaine. He left for a bit to look at another patient, and when he came back, he jokingly told his assistant, "Did you grab that rubber mallet from the back room?" At that point, I wouldn't have minded if they'd used it!

We tried again. Same result. Finally, he announced that if my tooth was that sensitive, the cavity must have damaged the nerve. A root canal was in order.

I groaned. Not only would there be more novacaine and pain, but my bank account would feel that pain, too!

The appointment was made for Monday morning at 8 a.m. at a specialist. I figured, why not? Get it over and done with. Except we had a snowstorm over the weekend and traffic was moving at a snail's pace on Monday morning. And then I couldn't find the darn specialist's office!

Finally, I made it - 15 minutes late - and he was standing at the front with his coat and gloves on.

"Are you Melissa?" he said.

"Yes," I said, out of breath.

"You just caught me. I was about to leave."

NOT a good way to start an appointment where the other guy has a drill and plans to use it.

This time, when he shot me up with novacaine (in three separate areas), I thought I was going to pass out. Literally. My hands shook, my heart pounded, and I felt dizzy. When I asked him if this was normal, he told me about how the nerves and the blood vessels are so close together and sometimes the novacaine gets into the blood stream and can make you feel "jittery."

"That jitteryness (sp?) wear off in 10 to 15 minutes."

Would have been nice to know that before I felt like my heart was about to explode.

But once he got to work, I was quite thankful for the novacaine. I didn't feel a thing.

It took him about 20 minutes to fix my tooth. When he finished, I drug myself out of the chair, dutifully paid the cost in full (gasp! that one hurt), and drove home. I crawled into bed and slept the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon away. When I woke up, I was surprised that my mouth wasn't screaming in pain. In fact, my head hurt worse than my mouth, from keeping my jaws open and tensing up so much.

This morning, though, I'm feeling pretty good. Except, I have another dentist appointment next week...