So I sit here, VERY frustrated for the moment because I need to be fundraising, aka talking to people. But alas, I just back from the dentist, where I got the last 2 of five fillings in the past month. The right side of my mouth is tingly, limp, and generally just not there. It's a non-mouth. I bet the woman behind the counter secretly loves when she gets co-pays (or $300, half of what you owe for your fillings, whatever) from persons having just gotten fillings. Because I am so self-conscious that I look the way I feel. And when I talk, suddenly my lips and tongue serve as these evil obstacles to avoid when trying to speak. Grr. And next to me sits a granny smith apple. Ooh I'd love to have that apple right now. I can just hear Granny Smith now, "Jaquelin, come have an afternoon snack...eat me!" And to that I say, "No Granny Smith, I will bite my mouth to bits if I eat you right now." So I sit here at my computer, realizing that my options are suddenly limited for what I can do right now. I could go for a run but I'm taking another day off, with the permission of my coach. Because my legs decided to be in a fight with me today (but I DID look smashing...and a little TOO serious, especially paired up with my reflective vest...with my fuel belt on).
So while we're on the subject of the dentist. Er, or while we're in an entry entitled "The Dentist"...let me share with you some observations that I was able to make.
1. First and foremost, Abby has the most spectacular scrubs compared to most. Solid royal blue? Who does that dental hygienist think she is!? I should have told her that Tweety Bird, Betty Boop, and Pooh Bear were all floating around on scrubs, waiting for her at WalMart.
2. Second, the dentist put a "rubber blue dam" on my mouth while he did the fillings. And while I appreciate the procedure and safety that comes with this dam, I felt like I was being tortured. Not so much in the physical form, but in the verbal abuse form. They were saying things and I couldn't respond back. "What kind of dentist do you go to!?!?" You may be wondering. Well, folks? I go to the kind of dentist where they assume that I go by Jackie.
Oh. My. Gosh.
If I compiled all the times I've been called Jackie in my life, it probably wouldn't surpass the amount of times that putrid name was directed toward me in the last 1.5 hours of my life. If I knew, before they put the dam on my mouth, that they were the assuming type, I'd let them know before. It was like they were placing the dam on my mouth so they could flood my ears with the name, yet my polite-yet-secretly-very-frustrated corrections would be trapped. It was a rubber blue dam of putridness. It put a bad taste in my mouth. Oh, wait, my mouth is still numb from the anesthesia. I think they put "Jackie" into the needle with which they numbed me.
3. Before I freak out about that (that's funny, get it?...cuz I already have had a cow), I will move onto my next thing. I think I take this for granted because I don't have to do it. That is, if there are 2 people working on my mouth, and I have a dam of putridness, and a numb mouth, what do they talk about? Not only can I not really talk, but they are doing things to my mouth. Not only that, they are doing things to my mouth with big fat silver tools that make noise and cause enamel and tooth to shoot out of my mouth into the air. WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN THERE!? Why do we put our trust into these people? I'll tell you why. It could be because they have their teeth certificate, and they graduated from teeth school, and maybe their scrub style passes our personal test (not today, not today...). I think that ultimately, it's because they are really good at what they do and don't say when they are using those tools in our mouths. They don't say things like, "oh shoot", "oops", "I hate it when that happens", "oh no, where did it go?". You get the idea. My dentist was very calm the whole time and who knows? Maybe there was an emergency in my mouth but how would I know? His talk about Sean Penn and Lance Armstrong with his assistant was pretty tame. UNLESS dentists have top secret meetings with their co-workers and talk about code words/phrases that actually mean "I've really screwed up in here", or "we'll just give her a discount". I mean com'n, talking about how his niece is turning 35 tomorrow!? Is it just me or is that a tell-tale sign that my mouth will never be the same?
Those are my main dentist observations for the day. In the next couple of minutes I plan on saying some things to myself to make sure I look normal when I talk. Because I have GOT to go fundraise. I'll just tell myself over and over not to freak out when people call me Jackie. Let the flood gates open and the dam--the rubber blue dam--be broken.
LOL. It's been awhile, I know.
1 comment:
Okay, so obviously it is my civic duty to leave a comment about this post. First and foremost I would like to say that I have learned in my dental assisting classes that the dentist and dental assistant who filled your cavities have probably done that exact procedure around 50,000 times. This could be why they were so calm. Also I'm guessing your cavities were only class 1 on the occlusal part of your posterior teeth which is the most common place and therefore not a huge procedure. Maybe class 2 but that's still pretty standard. Anyway, I'm officially inviting you, Jaq, and anyone else who is reading this to go out to coffee with me and talk about your dental history because nothing would fascinate or please me more.
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