You might recall that I got a cavity recently. Not a particularly proud moment, even if it’s been over 20 years since my last one. Still, something that needed to be fixed before anything else went awry.
I was supposed to have this done on June 7, shortly after getting back from the cruise with Mom. However, it had to be delayed for reasons, which pushed it back into late June, which happened to coincide with our trip to Ireland. That pushed it back to today.
It really felt like delaying the execution.
The tooth in question was my upper-right wisdom tooth. (Yep, still have ’em. Yes, you can make all the “big mouth” jokes you want.) All the way back there was going to make things difficult.
As you might recall, I have a bad gag reflex. It makes going to the dentist a wholly unenjoyable experience for everyone. It’s not that I find anything they do painful, it’s that my tongue is acting like the bouncer and is trying to kick out the riff-raff. The dentist planned to counter this with nitrous oxide – laughing gas.
I arrived just before 7am. Get it over with and done as soon as possible, I figured. I was hungry and cranky – no food or drink was allowed in advance. I didn’t wait too long before being taken to one of the many identical rooms down a hallway for the procedure. I had to sign a form (the classic “you can’t sue us if you are injured” waiver) and sat down to get hooked up.
Although I’ve seen pictures of the nitrous hoses in dental procedures before, the “nasal mask” (quite literally looking like a pilot mask with hoses on either side, shrunk to fit only over the nose) still surprised me. Somehow, I was expecting more of the hospital “tube down the nose” approach.
Breathe deeply. It should help. That’s what I was told.
The dentist – and I literally do not know her name, for the life of me – arrived a little over five minutes later (by which time the nitrous should have taken effect) and started to get my mouth ready for the task. The single biggest challenge? The dental dam, a holdover from medieval torture chambers, rammed into your gullet for the sole purpose of making your gums and jaw hurt.
I nearly vomited. That’s how much the nitrous wasn’t doing a damned thing. Alex loves nitrous, it does wonders for her. Me? Might as well have been gaseous caffeine.
To her credit, the dentist wanted to get this job done. The nitrous might have been a bust, but there were still other options, notably freezing the heck out of my jaw. That involved some topical freezing, then a needle that looked right out of one of those horrific B-movies where they try to harvest something out of someone’s chest. Except it was injecting freezing into my jaw … for 30 seconds. I nearly tore the arms off the chair trying not to move. (My nerves still twinge a little at the thought.)
Next, it was wait some more. That gave the dentist and her assistant a few moments to prep. Same basic approach. They complimented me on my patience. I barked in dismissal: “You’re the ones who have to be patient, I’m a pain in the ass.” They tried to assure me that I wasn’t that bad, that my gag reflex wasn’t as severe as others. Still, it got me to utter: “I’d make a terrible gay porn star.”
Half my tongue was absent. It was there, but it might as well have been a void for all I couldn’t feel. A few test probes suggested I was ready, and the damn dam went back in. I could feel pressure on my gum (it’s gonna be a day or two before it feels normal again), but otherwise I couldn’t tell that it was there. The liner went in, snap snap, and the drill came into view.
I’ve had several dental hygienists try to convince me to use an ultrasonic cleaning tool instead of the ol’ manual plaque scraper. The only time I’ve had the experience, they had to peel me off the ceiling. There’s just something about the vibrations.
The drill is easily as bad. A direct line of shrieking from my tooth to some center in my brain for sheer, bloody panic. The dentist noticed this immediately and asked if I were in pain, quickly adding “vibration?” Nodding to the latter – I couldn’t have gotten a single syllable across with any coherence – she proceeded.
She was quick. The bad part was dug out with extreme haste and accuracy. She then packed it with whatever it is that they use these days, hardened it, then ground out the extra so that my teeth closed well. That was done in 3 second bursts, as I was struggling with the drilling and, frankly, the damn dam was doing me no favours.
Then, poof, suddenly it was done, the dam was removed, and my jaw ached, despite the freezing. The best I could do was mumble, but I was otherwise clear-headed. That didn’t make it any easier to get back to the car and drive home – I felt like I’d just done a couple of rounds with a boxer. My face felt swollen despite no visible injury.
Those first couple of meetings at work? I tried not to say much.
About an hour after getting home, I braved a coffee. The caffeine certainly took a bite out of the freezing and I soon started to feel normal again. But it was a few hours. And my gum still hurts.
The takeaway from all of this? Better brushing. It’s what caught me this time. I’ll have to do a better job as not to have things get worse.
