Now, SPIT! My Weekend (part the second)

I woke up on Monday morning, and I knew I was in for a treat of a day. The mattress we had slept on the night before was just a shade softer than granite. My eyes opened, and immediately I was apprehensive about my 11 AM dentist appointment the way a person is apprehensive about a triple-bypass. Yeah, I knew in my head I was blowing it out of proportion. It was not a good day to be high-strung. It seems that I don’t always have the final say in that, though.

We arrived at my father-in-law’s dental practice, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Peaceful, if you don’t think you’re about to die. We head into the office, and I’m ushered immediately into THE CHAIR.

This is where I proceeded to freak out. I didn’t want to do the nitrous because this was my first cavity. I wanted to experience it. I’m all about experiencing life. Besides, he was doing a local anesthetic.

He came at me with that needle, and I started climbing the walls. I was riding the dentist chair like it was a bronco! Then I started to black out, so the next several minutes are hazy at best. I felt like I was going to spray that room and everyone in it with a fine layer of eggs and coffee but, liking my father-in-law quite a bit, I tried to spare him that gruesome experience.

I told them I was going to need the nitrous after all, and they proceeded to apply the mask. But I was already too far gone in my panic attack, and the smell of the gas just freaked me out more. I started hyperventilating.

“Doctor! He’s about to pass out.”

“OK. We’ll let him.” Came the dry reply. If I hadn’t been going out of my head, I would have thought it was funny too.

Fast forward about 15 minutes, some pure oxygen in the nitrous mask, and a nice cool wash cloth, and I was pretty much done with my shenanigans. It was also at this time that I decided to stop listening to Nine Inch Nails’ “Downward Spiral” CD and change the CD to something a little more calming.

“Industrial music during dental drilling? Are you mad?” I can hear you ask. But I had actually thought this out and it made sense. First of all, it’s one of my favorite CDs and I love listening to the complexities of the engineering and mixing. Secondly, I thought the drilling sound wouldn’t be so obvious or so painful to hear if overall I was hearing industrial music.

Yeah, except it isn’t very calming. That part I hadn’t really thought about. It’s great work-out music, but not so much on the soothing tip.

The rest of the appointment went well. We did four cavities total, with about 4 more to tackle at a later date. After the first one was done, I thought “Dude, that was NOTHING! Fire up the drill and let’s go again!” It was harder to convince my father-in-law that I was OK, but I was fired up and ready to do this thing. As soon as he was done with the needle, I was cool.

He took care of the four top teeth that needed work and we called it a day. Talking was easier than I thought it would be, although I did have trouble with the letter “P”. I could only manage to make them “F”s. I gleefully said “hockey puck” over and over.

I got hungry about 2:30. Which may have been a little too soon. We pulled over at a Denny’s type restaurant (nice soft pancakes and eggs sounded good with a little coffee sounded good) and got a seat. The right half of my mouth had most of the feeling back. The left side?

Well, I found out when I took that big sip of coffee that this was going to require some extra effort and attention that eating hadn’t required from me since infancy.

The only regret? My very good friend and I didn’t make out. I seriously wanted to know what it would be like to make out with a numb upper lip. Thankfully, I have four more cavities to take care of and I’ll have my chance to neck “under the influence” at some point in the next couple of months. Don’t worry, I’ll give you all the juicy (and slobbery) details.

So, yeah. Maybe it’s time to start flossing regularly. My very good friend flosses all the time, but I just thought it was a nervous tick or something. So many horror stories from a dentist in the family can do that to a person.