Time for my annual check-up at the dentist today. She has moved premises to somewhere nearer home. My husband tries to cheer me up (because, folks, I suffer from severe dentophobia) by describing the new dental surgery like this: “Honestly, you’ll love it. It’s got stars in the floor. It’s like you’ve died and gone to heaven!”
In my case, there is no way that heaven and dentist can even exist in the same universe. Visiting the dentist’s is more like going down to a place that myth has us believe is much hotter than heaven!
Anyway, so there I am in the new surgery. The floor does indeed have sparkling silver stars in it so that it is like walking on a starry heaven. But guess what? It still feels like the waiting room to hell.
After an excruciating delay, I am shown into a room which is all windows, white floor and shiny new equipment. First off, the X-rays. Then the dental hygienist comes in and starts excavating for lost relics, digging deep down between the teeth with an enormous brush. “You’ve got tartar,” she explains. “And that’s my area of expertise!” she exclaims with glee as she continues her archaeological dig.
I try to watch the synchronized diving because each room has got its very own TV on the ceiling. It’s not easy because now she’s polishing my teeth with a lemon-scented liquid (rather like the scented wipes you get on a plane) and it is squirting up my nose and all over my face.
Then the dentist herself comes in, prods around a bit and looks at the X-rays. I wait for my doom: as long as I can remember I have always always had to have work done on my teeth. Always.
She delivers my sentence: “Your teeth look good! Come back in a year!”
That’s when I think I have died and gone to heaven.
August 12, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Mohahahahaha…schysst bild *S*. Vi får väl helt enkelt bjuda dig på fler chokladmuffins
!
August 12, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Ohhh…I wish they’d said that to me. Still going, first visit in…hmm…May I think. And the sentence I heard was:
- We have to do a root canal, and then you have six cavities.
- Jeeez…thanks…and that will cost me not only blood, sweat and tears but also how much?
- Oh, around 14k!
So, not only will it make me pennyless, but every visit to the dentist is also a pain in the…hmm…mouth?
I am more afraid of dentists than I am of dolls (whole different stories – but I am a doll-o-phobic), mentally prepped every time and every time ends with me cramping up in the chair, watching the goddamn poster in the ceiling, hurting myself in some way that I never discover until I am done (last time I was holding a mirror during, and I had pressed the mirror so hard into my hand I actually got a bruise to prove it).
I’m still not done with the root canal – and I frickin’ hate every minute of it!
You’ve gotta have some sort of sadist part of your personality to become a dentist – eeeeveryone knows that most people are scared shitless. And I go from being close to 40 to being six and in need of my mothers hand just entering the waiting room from hell.
Congrats on not having to go back there for a year – I wish it was me ;o)
August 13, 2008 at 6:26 am
Chokladmuffins – ja tack!
Blue: I know how you are feeling: last year I had to do a root canal (and boy oh boy does that hurt!) – it took about five visits before she could finally finish the job due to my screaming… Then I had two small holes too… It’s terrible, but you’ll have to take out a second mortgage just to pay for dental work!
August 14, 2009 at 8:01 am
These days it’s not the dental work that scares me, it’s the bill!!
August 25, 2009 at 8:20 am
Dentists are a luxury these days, so I have an excuse to stay away. In fact I have stayed awaye so long I couldnt afford to go to one!
Glad it was good news.