Toothaches - Part 2

It's been exactly a week since my return trip to the dentist to have whatever the hell was wrong with my tooth fixed.  I got up (literally) before the sun came up, anticipating mega amounts of morning commuter traffic, and nervous that I wouldn't make it to my 7:00 a.m. (!!!!!) appointment on time.

I still haven't figured out how I'm ALWAYS the person who gets the 7:00 a.m. schedule slot. never once, since being at this base and since this whole dental fiasco began, have I had a nice, mid-morning  appointment (who ARE the lucky bastards that get to saunter in at 10:30, all well rested and with brushed hair?) or an afternoon appointment (dare to dream, chuck. dare. to. dream.)

anyway, I rolled into the parking lot at 6:58, giving me just enough time to shuffle (and I was so exhausted that I was, in fact, shuffling) to the front desk to check in.  I suddenly realized that I was about to have drills and hands and god knows what else in my mouth, and my heart started racing and I got all anxious, but that's pretty par for the course for me, so I just tried calming myself down.

the (way-too-excited for 7:00 a.m.) technician came out, called my name (this time he called me "Carla," as opposed to the "Mrs. English" that I've started to expect, and yes, I realize that Carla isn't my name, but if the last 29 years has taught me anything, it's that if it starts with a "C" sound and ends with any of the sounds that the letter "A" can possibly make, they are probably calling MY name....(sidenote: one of the (very small) reasons I was so stoked to get married was that people would FINALLY be able to pronounce my last name - it was so exciting to think "well, at least they can only screw up HALF my name now!" - I had a teacher once that insisted on repeatedly calling me "Carla Crawley," and my classmates never understood why I didn't just correct her. I tried to explain to them that by that point in my life, I was so used to people butchering my name that I just didn't care anymore....also, I don't know why people insist on treating the "H" in my first name as if it were silent...it is NOT silent, y'all!...make that "H" sound loud and proud....but I digress....)....so anyway, I drag myself out of the chair and follow him back to a treatment room where I climb into the big dentists chair and start to get all anxious and nervous again.  Dr. Model Guy enters not too long after I get settled - we exchange pleasantries, and I go on to tell him that the pain is progressively getting worse, and I try to make jokes that he doesn't laugh at because either (a) he doesn't get them, or (b) I'm not nearly as funny as I think I am.  We discuss a plan of attack ("first we'll remove the filling and replace it, give it two weeks, and if that doesn't help, we will do a root canal"), and he shoves one of those q-tips with some gnarly tasting gel into the right side of my mouth between my cheek and my bottom teeth - I make a face at the disgustingness of the taste in my mouth and  he looks at me, obviously understanding the meaning of my scrunched up nose and attempt at a frown (it's totally hard to frown with a  giant q-tip shoved in your mouth) - "it's watermelon flavored!" he says, all happy and smiley..... I reach up, remove the giant q-tip, and say "whoever told you that has obviously never HAD watermelon. Also, I'm not sure what your chart says, and I know I've got pretty decent skin, but I'm not 4, so lying to me and telling me something is fruit flavored doesn't make it any less disgusting" - he looks like he's going to laugh, but instead just shoves the q-tip back in my mouth and tells me to close my mouth and hold it there.  so I do.

I sat there for a good 3 or 4 minutes listening to the discussion between the Tech and Dr. Model Guy.  they talked about baseball.  They talked about basketball.  They talked about what they did over the weekend.  I start to calm down and almost fall asleep in the chair. I eventually feel a hand pass over my face, and the gigantic q-tip comes out of my mouth. I realize what is next, and I brace for it - the big metal syringe....

I'm not scared of needles at all.  My tattoos, various piercings over the years, and my profession are all a testament to that.  You want to take a blood sample? awesome! no problem! What's that?  I need a vaccination? I'm totally fine with that!  But there is something about those large metal syringes that scares that shit out of me. they are like something out of a horror movie - like some kind of torture device - and the thought of having these long, cold needles shoved into parts of my mouth....ugh. It's by far one of the most unpleasant things I can think of doing, but obviously when you're having dental work done, it's absolutely necessary - when it works, that is.

I got the first injection, then a second one immediately after.  This was followed by a considerable amount of waiting time, and every few minutes one of them would ask me if my face/tongue/lip was numb yet.  I felt bad because I kept having to tell them no, and also hated telling them that because I knew it meant more injections, more waiting and more questions......we repeated the cycle 3 times, and,  to be honest, my lip and tongue never got numb beyond a slight tingle - all told there were 7 injections put into my mouth, and not much progress in the way of numbness -  but he figured that my tooth itself must be numb, so the work began.


I was definitely scared the minute he turned on the drill because something inside me knew that I was about to be in quite a bit of discomfort.  yes, my tooth was pretty numb, but I realized almost immediately that I could still feel cold, and when you're dealing with the kind of sensitivity I was, that kind of shooting cold is almost too much to deal with.  Just like at my last visit, they had told me that if I felt any pain or discomfort, to raise my hand - and raise my hand I did.....

The first little jolt of pain went through me, and my whole body started shaking. My hand went up and the tech put his hand on my shoulder and said "can you feel THAT?" and, because I had a mouth full of stuff at that point and couldn't really talk, I shook my head yes and tried to say "COLD" as clearly as I could - they backed off for a few minutes hoping that the injections would kick in, and they started up again - another jolt of cold ran through me, and again,  I started shaking and had tears coming down my cheeks.  My hand popped up. He stopped again, asked if I was still feeling it, and I shook my head "yes" - this pattern repeated a few times, and I could tell that he was becoming frustrated (as was I) and was also concerned that he was hurting me.  I'd gotten to the point where I knew the filling was halfway out (because he said, in a tone that was both relieved AND frustrated  "okay, we're halfway out" - which, by the way, took probably 3 times as long as it should have!)  and there was no turning back, so the last time he stopped to give me a break, I looked up at him, and as clearly as I could with the plethora of crap in my mouth said "JUST GO" - and he did....

I spent the next few minutes trying to focus on anything else but the constant pain in my mouth.  I tried paying attention to the music that was playing on the Tech's iPod (Selena's "I Could Fall In Love With You" followed by some hip hop crap I didn't recognize, followed by something that sounded like a mariachi band with a ska horn section....), but that just seemed to make it worse (I think it was at this point that I thought to myself "THIS is what Hell HAS to be like!")...then I tried to "go to my happy place," but I ended up having such a hard time trying to even figure out where the Hell my happy place IS that it was totally pointless.  I tried thinking about things I needed from the store/things I wanted to buy/my to-do lists, but the pain just kept taking over my brain.  It was so hard to focus on anything else besides what I was feeling, so eventually I just totally gave myself over to it.  I realized at some point how ridiculous I looked - I had instinctively tucked my feet up towards my chest and was clutching the arm rests on the chair as hard as I could.  My arms and legs were shaking, and I kept automatically trying to snap my mouth shut every time I felt a stab of pain (fortunately, they had shoved one of those rubber bite stopper things in the other side of my mouth after I'd had the first couple of minutes of clamping my jaw shut, rendering me unable to do it anymore), so the left side of my jaw had become sore just from me grinding on the rubber bite stopper. In that last bit of getting the filling out, It seemed like an hour went by, but in reality, I'm sure it was just a matter of 5 minutes or so....probably less....it's amazing how discomfort can make time drag on.

When he finished getting the filling out, he quickly replaced it, and I spent the rest of the appointment half dazed with soreness all over my body. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, and all I could think about was getting home and doing just that.  When he was finally done, he apologized that the injections didn't work completely, but that they must have worked at least somewhat on the tooth itself, or there is no way I could have suffered through that.  He was probably right, but at the time I couldn't imagine any feeling worse than what I'd just been through.  I explained to him that I'd never had ANY trouble - in my entire life - with the Lidocaine (or whatever agent was used at the time) injections making me numb, and that they usually work VERY quickly, and most of the time take ages to wear off - he said he didn't know what had happened that day, and explained that sometimes people just get so nervous and worked up that the injections just don't work until they get home and relax - He told me that there is one patient there who has needed work done for months, but every time he comes in, they spend the entire appointment waiting on his tooth/lip/tongue to go numb, and it never does, but once the guy gets home, he's numb for hours....It's believable that this would happen, but honestly at that point (and considering I'd never had this problem before), I called his bluff and just figured he kept missing the proper injection sites (cause the mouth is a tricky, tricky thing), and just considered myself lucky that my tooth was at least a little bit numb...."I KNEW he was too good looking to be smart enough to be a dentist!" I thought to myself....

I asked if he thought I would be in pain for the next day or two, and he said "Yes." - I asked what he suggested for the pain (I admit that I was kind of hoping for something that required a trip to the pharmacy) and he stuck with the old tried-and-true military go-to recommendation for EVERYTHING: Ibuprofen. I thanked him, told him I'd call if the problems persisted to schedule another visit, and headed home.

And wouldn't you know it? about 10 minutes into my drive, the entire right side of my face went numb.