Okay, so today I have the best dentist appointment evah.
No shit.
Her name was Dr Platte, she wasnt all that much older than me, was cute and perky and had never had real tooth pain in her life. She also didnt get upset or all stern when I saw the needles and panicked so bad I was shaking and crying, and neither did any of her associates. They talked me through it, calmed me down, held my hands (I insisted, I didnt want to lose it and start flailing at the needle arm before anyone could stop me--thankfully didnt even come close) and forgave me my trespasses with a lot of honest sweetness. They made me forget I was one of many patients, while they were in the room, it was all about me.
Do you know how rare that is? Most times I get that look, that look that says "Girl, you are almost 30, what the hell are you doing acting like a 5 yr old about a needle? Can you get over it so we can get done already?" And then comes the stern voice, like they can shame me out of my fear.
I have only two phobias in my life, and needles rates high on that list. I have turned so absolutely stark pale from someone drawing blood from a finger the nurses frequently sit me down and force juice and cookies on me they're so worried. Among my lease favorite things in the world are needles, roaches, and flying stingy wasp-like creatures. Two I can kill with great prejudice, going berzerk and screaming "Die! Die! DIE!" while pounding them to pulp with a shoe or other blunt instrument. The third I have to sit and endure, knowing its coming and not being able to do a damned thing about it.
I'm not as bad as an old friend of mine, she needed to be held down by four burly orderlies, and she's 5 foot nothing. They couldnt take her.
But no, I was allowed to relax, They explained my x-rays and what needed to be taken care of, didnt make me feel ashamed for being a bad flosser (you wouldnt believe the grief I get for that from previous dentists, they make me feel as disgusting as a ten cent hooker eating out of garbage cans and sleeping in raw sewage--shades of a friend of mine's sexual fantasies, but we eont go there)and generally handled my shenanigans with aplomb. Lemme tell you, I despise dentists and the whole dental thing, and I'm almost looking forward to going back and getting cavaties filled. Wow.
Also, whoever thought up the "Snap, Crackle, Pop" of Rice Crispies? I know where he got the idea. He was having a tooth extracted at the time, a bad one, one that rotted almost clean away. He was sitting in the dentist's chair, listening to the pliers rip and shred the tooth to pieces, metal clack against teeth, and the rotted parts disenigrating with a crackle under the pulling pressure. Lemme tell ya, there was a party in my mouth and I'm SO glad I wasnt invited.
I could feel that one nerve, the central one that gets so pissed every time you crack, break, or rot a lower tooth, the one you feel all the way through your jaw and the side of your head. Without anisthetic, I would have been screaming in pain. With it I felt almost nothing (did I mention she was good?) but a shadowy spiraling ghost that wasnt even pain, but a suggestion of what might have been. I was well aware of every inch of that numbed nerve, and thanked every god I had I wasnt feeling more. Odd feeling though, like tracing an electric wire through your jaw with a low grade current.
I have spent the past two days so high on pain pills I could barely even function. Monday I went to bed with an ever so slight toothache. Tuesday I awoke with a bad pain in my jaw, but bearable after I popped a couple pills. It wasnt until midmorning when the pain had quickly become excruciating that I realized my jaw was noticably swollen. By the second day I was on borrowed antibiotics (borrowed, like I could give them back) and my jaw had swollen up enough I knew what I'd look like as a 300 lb woman. The bone was sore. It hurt from above my ear to all the way below what passes for an adam's apple in women. My throat was so sore and swollen I could barely swalow. I was popping pills like candy and only dulling the pain.
Ya know, I have one Perkaset saved just for this occasion and I misplaced it. *le sigh*
Today it still is sore from the bottom of the jawbone down, and eventually I will need to get a false tooth put in to replace the real one, but its nothng like the pain was. Despite the dull throbbing, I no longer want to rip the entire side of my face off with nothing but blunt fingernails and shrieks of frustrated pain, so I've been practically perky all day.
I should destroy myself more often if it makes me this happy. Heh.
Appointment again next month, about two weeks before I jump out of an airplane. Think I can handle it?
No shit.
Her name was Dr Platte, she wasnt all that much older than me, was cute and perky and had never had real tooth pain in her life. She also didnt get upset or all stern when I saw the needles and panicked so bad I was shaking and crying, and neither did any of her associates. They talked me through it, calmed me down, held my hands (I insisted, I didnt want to lose it and start flailing at the needle arm before anyone could stop me--thankfully didnt even come close) and forgave me my trespasses with a lot of honest sweetness. They made me forget I was one of many patients, while they were in the room, it was all about me.
Do you know how rare that is? Most times I get that look, that look that says "Girl, you are almost 30, what the hell are you doing acting like a 5 yr old about a needle? Can you get over it so we can get done already?" And then comes the stern voice, like they can shame me out of my fear.
I have only two phobias in my life, and needles rates high on that list. I have turned so absolutely stark pale from someone drawing blood from a finger the nurses frequently sit me down and force juice and cookies on me they're so worried. Among my lease favorite things in the world are needles, roaches, and flying stingy wasp-like creatures. Two I can kill with great prejudice, going berzerk and screaming "Die! Die! DIE!" while pounding them to pulp with a shoe or other blunt instrument. The third I have to sit and endure, knowing its coming and not being able to do a damned thing about it.
I'm not as bad as an old friend of mine, she needed to be held down by four burly orderlies, and she's 5 foot nothing. They couldnt take her.
But no, I was allowed to relax, They explained my x-rays and what needed to be taken care of, didnt make me feel ashamed for being a bad flosser (you wouldnt believe the grief I get for that from previous dentists, they make me feel as disgusting as a ten cent hooker eating out of garbage cans and sleeping in raw sewage--shades of a friend of mine's sexual fantasies, but we eont go there)and generally handled my shenanigans with aplomb. Lemme tell you, I despise dentists and the whole dental thing, and I'm almost looking forward to going back and getting cavaties filled. Wow.
Also, whoever thought up the "Snap, Crackle, Pop" of Rice Crispies? I know where he got the idea. He was having a tooth extracted at the time, a bad one, one that rotted almost clean away. He was sitting in the dentist's chair, listening to the pliers rip and shred the tooth to pieces, metal clack against teeth, and the rotted parts disenigrating with a crackle under the pulling pressure. Lemme tell ya, there was a party in my mouth and I'm SO glad I wasnt invited.
I could feel that one nerve, the central one that gets so pissed every time you crack, break, or rot a lower tooth, the one you feel all the way through your jaw and the side of your head. Without anisthetic, I would have been screaming in pain. With it I felt almost nothing (did I mention she was good?) but a shadowy spiraling ghost that wasnt even pain, but a suggestion of what might have been. I was well aware of every inch of that numbed nerve, and thanked every god I had I wasnt feeling more. Odd feeling though, like tracing an electric wire through your jaw with a low grade current.
I have spent the past two days so high on pain pills I could barely even function. Monday I went to bed with an ever so slight toothache. Tuesday I awoke with a bad pain in my jaw, but bearable after I popped a couple pills. It wasnt until midmorning when the pain had quickly become excruciating that I realized my jaw was noticably swollen. By the second day I was on borrowed antibiotics (borrowed, like I could give them back) and my jaw had swollen up enough I knew what I'd look like as a 300 lb woman. The bone was sore. It hurt from above my ear to all the way below what passes for an adam's apple in women. My throat was so sore and swollen I could barely swalow. I was popping pills like candy and only dulling the pain.
Ya know, I have one Perkaset saved just for this occasion and I misplaced it. *le sigh*
Today it still is sore from the bottom of the jawbone down, and eventually I will need to get a false tooth put in to replace the real one, but its nothng like the pain was. Despite the dull throbbing, I no longer want to rip the entire side of my face off with nothing but blunt fingernails and shrieks of frustrated pain, so I've been practically perky all day.
I should destroy myself more often if it makes me this happy. Heh.
Appointment again next month, about two weeks before I jump out of an airplane. Think I can handle it?