Of agony and being a wuss

Other than the odd, differently-geared human being, very few people enjoy going to the dentist. However, some souls like your author, would rather endure searing, nerve-stripping pain for months (or until the progressively stronger painkillers run out) than visit the very nice dentist who does not deserve such trembling fear*.

I’ve already lost an 8th of my teeth because of exactly this. And yet, notwithstanding the 1. constant looping nightmares of spitting out my smile in calcium grit and 2. pain so intense I weep like a little kid who wishes the needles of fire would please leave her jaw muscles, I do not make the appointment.

Do you know what it is to have fear be so real and so tangible that it feels as if fingers of menacing ice has gotten hold of your solar plexus and is squeezing just to watch you helplessly gasp? Just the thought of that drilled bone smell, antiseptic metal horror…or feeling the cold invasion of a needle scraping against your cheekbone…oh gods…I would rather have the tooth pulled and live on soup for the rest of time than face the fact that I have an abscess and need a root canal and heaven only knows how much more work…/shudder.

I’m convinced dentists must be the nicest people on earth. Who else could handle knowing that someone is so utterly at their mercy and yet be kind?**

For now, I will continue in a haze of medication and dull, throbbing pain. So if I walk into you and then apologise to the chair you are sitting on; just nod and give me some more Codeine.

1. Word of the day: odontophobia

2. Insight of the day: I’m a fool and will soon be a toothless hag

3. State of the pool: Sluggish, pulsing blood and saliva

4. Random thought: How come they can’t make a more marshmellowy cotton than those Kalahari dry mouth tampon things dentists use?

5. Awesomest lines: It’s been a while but here is Emma

[azure]
your memory
emphasize the empty
space, where images
used to hover between
the tangible and the imaginary

in quiet distress
I wait for the solace of
finding magic instead
of frailty, and one word
answers to a line of thoughts

like a blank canvas

awaiting the stroke of

coloured paint, your words

tame the white spaces into

breathing pieces of being

6. Scripture line: Oh man. How lost we would be without the Psalms.

Ps 91: ⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,

Ps 27: ³ Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
even then will I be confident.

*I think any true dictator is a dentist gone bad. They get so used to eyes brimming with fearful tears, limbs shaking with terror and pathetic whimpering that they get addicted. I’m sure Pol Pot harboured secret endodontic fantasies and since Korea is hardly a haven for veneer seekers, he had to settle for mass murder by blunt things like bullets, rape and fire.

**Except for the military bastard who started this horror in my soul. I should have had my wisdom teeth extracted while blissfully unaware but that…man…thought it better for me to be awake and have my agony be witnessed by 6 dental students. Perhaps if he made the effort to ensure that the 3 injections he gave me were sufficient I would not still be traumatised. There are very few sounds as disconcerting and sanity-snapping as hearing, and feeling, your teeth being broken out of your jaw. Also quite fun when your chair tips as that…man…braces against it for better grip.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.