I'M SO SENSITIVE

WARNING: Some of you may be shocked, offended, or angry at the content of this post.  

I went to the dentist.  I did not cancel it during this time of quarantine.  And neither did my dentist.  Let the judging begin.  I went out.

I am one of those people who absolutely dread going to the dentist.  It will affect my sleep the night before, distract me at work, and fill my insides with butterflies.  To put it simply, I was not blessed with good teeth, so if I don't diligently stick to my six-month cleaning, I end up with devastating results.  I have terrible memories that involve my mouth.   I bit my tongue in half when I was five years old hanging upside down from a swing.  I had to be pinned down on an operating table to have it sewed back together.  When I was a junior at NIU my roommate Michelle and I had to thumb to a dentist somewhere in Sycamore where I had to have my gums scaled with no novocaine from some no-name dentist.  So yeah.  The dentist is a real phobia of mine.  And I love my current dentist!  It's not personal.  

I also remember going to the dentist with a terrible toothache when I was around ten years old.  Our family dentist was out of town, so my mom took me to a guy I didn't know.  He wasn't friendly.  I didn't know him. There was no special prize drawer like Dr. Lawler had.  All I remember is he started drilling my tooth with no warning and I started shaking so bad I felt like I was having a seizure.  He yelled at me, "Breathe through your nose!  Breathe through your nose!" as smoke billowed out of my mouth.

Yeah.  I have dental PTSD.

That same year I wrote a poem about that dentist visit for school and, as one would correctly assume, the imagery in the poem centered around this psycho dentist and the drill.  I shared it with my dad.  He was sitting at the head of the table in the kitchen in his burgundy robe, glasses on the end of his nose, reading it to himself and chuckling.  When he finished, he looked at me sheepishly, handed it back to me, and said, "You didn't write that."  

"Yes I did, dad!  That was the time I went to Dr. Crabapple when Dr. Lawler was out of town! I did, too, write it!  There was smoke coming out of my mouth!"

"You've gotta be kidding me," my dad remarked incredulously.  I'm still not sure if he believes it was me that wrote it.  

So here I am again, writing about my damn trip to the dentist.  

I showered (sorry to brag), put on a real matching outfit, flossed, and grabbed a fresh mask. Marty eked out an appointment as well, and we were both scheduled for 2:30.  So I woke Marty up a little earlier today, around 1:30, and told him we had to stop for gas so shake out the cobwebs.  Let's go.

My dental hygienist, the woman who has been cleaning my teeth for about ten years and aware of my PTSD experiences with the dentist, retired.  Ugh.  Now I have to get used to someone new.  We walk in, check-in, and then walk as far away from the other person waiting in the office as possible.  Marty is clearly embarrassed by my mask but I do not care.  Jeopardy! is on and it's college week.  Sweet.  My competitive nature is sparked and I welcome the distraction.  The next clue, Rules of the Road for $800, pops on the screen when I am distracted by a figure in my peripheral vision.  I turn to look and there is a woman in bright pink glasses smoking a cigarette staring at me through the window.  I look away and try to distract myself with Jeopardy! again but I can sense she is still there staring at me.

This is not helping my anxiety. WTF?

I reach for my phone.  I have to tell The Gals about this, and as I begin texting she walks away.  At that same time, the door opens.

"Jennifer?"  Well, seeing there are three people here and two of them are dudes, yes, that would be me.

Ugh.  Here we go.  

The new dental hygienist is adorable: cute hair, hip glasses, friendly.  She guides me into the room and I lower myself into the chair like someone being led to the guillotine.  We go through the routine questions and of course, I am due for X-Rays.  Let's do this.  Jam a  razor-sharp piece of origami into my mouth for some Polaroids.  That's what it feels like to me.  I actually enjoy the X-ray apron that's as heavy as a Volkswagen because it prevents my heart from leaping out of my chest and onto the silver tray with machetes.  That's what her tools look like to me.  Soon, there will be blood.

She pokes around for a bit with one utensil and as she pricks a filling here and there I have already knotted my mask into a sweaty ball.  It's literally shredding in my hands, which are clammy and fidgeting. Now she gets to work.  Here we go.  My last hygienist would let me hold the vacuum because I needed it to suction out the blood.  I forgot to tell her this part and she just starts scraping. 

She grabs the water pic and blasts me like a firefighter in Backdraft.  Why in the hell does this water have to be 33 degrees Fahrenheit?  

"I'm sorry, but I have very sensitive teeth.  That hurts."

"Oh no.  Then we won't use it.  Do you use sensitive toothpaste?"

"Yes.  I own stock in Sensodyne."

Silence. Ooooh K . . . .

She continues to scrape and elevates me to rinse.  My bib looks like it has been through Vietnam and so does the bowl. 

By the time she gets to the bottom teeth, I am focusing on the hunting show on the TV.  A Southern family who depends on hunting for food catches a huge, slimy octopus in what looks like a river, and explains that they have to sever the nerve between the eyes on its hood to kill it.  Could this day get any weirder?  Just then I hear, "Oops!  I just knocked part of your filling out.  I was afraid that was going to happen.  It's old."

"Will he be able to fill that back in today?  Or . . . ?"

"No. You'll probably have to come back next week."

Forlorn. That's the only way to describe how I feel.

Finally, she preps the polish and begins mortaring my teeth with a minty clay that is spackling both my teeth and my chin.  Ouch.  My gums are throbbing and I hope she offers me some Advil before I hit the road.

Doc comes in, tells me he'll just drill out the whole thing and replace it like it's no big deal.

So this is my therapy.  Writing.  Banging away at the keys while occasionally stopping to pry that tiny bit of asparagus lodged in the hole in my tooth.  Woe is me.