Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Dentists Do, In Fact, Exist. And They Are So Not Awesome.

My kid brother (who is twenty seven, but for reasons I will one day blog about will always be called 'kid') got married two weekends ago. We went, it was nice, blah blah blah. While I was mingling with the guests and doing the usher thing someone handed me a piece of gum. I don't chew gum, but hey, I was drunk. I put it in my mouth and then forgot it was there, so I spent the entire ceremony chewing it, then chiding myself to stop chewing it, then drunkenly forgetting I was supposed to be remembering to stop chewing, then hating myself for being a lush. Finally it was over, and we walked over to get our pictures taken. In that process, the gum sucked one of the fillings out of my head.

Uh oh.

I hate the dentist. But big deal, everybody hates the dentist. Let me explain: I hate the dentist so much I have convinced myself that he does not exist. I live in a complete state of denial about the entire field of oral medicine. I diligently brush my teeth twice a day (and sometimes more often), and I've even been known to floss several times a week. I actually enjoy it. Of course, it helps that I tell myself that I'm doing it to ward off the dentist, who has taken on a bogeyman stature in my terrified mind.

It's not that I'm afraid of the pain, because I'm not. I know from pain. I could write a book comparing the various emergency rooms in the DC area. I've had actual medical procedures where they give you something to bite on to help with the pain. I'm serious. The kind of thing where the doctor says, "Look, this is going to really hurt and that's fucked up and I'm sorry. I forgive you in advance for all the terrible things you're about to shout at me, but don't worry because you will pass out before the pain actually does in fact kill you. Are you ready?"

But anyway I'm getting ahead of myself. All you need to know now is that I hate the dentist but the lost filling meant I had to go.

Of course I put off going right away though. Throughout the week I kept running my tongue over the hole in my molar where the filling used to be, and I kept telling myself that because there was no pain, I would probably be okay. In fact, I was doing just that on Friday when I jarred what appeared to be an even bigger piece of the tooth or filling or whatever loose, and I realized I had to see the dentist immediately. I frantically called all the dentists I could find with downtown offices until someone agreed to see me, and I jumped in a cab and went straight over. In retrospect, this was a bad idea.

Normally when I go to the dentist I load up on Ativan or Xanax just to make it through the ordeal. Again, it's not the pain I'm concerned about. It's the actual sitting in the chair, the anticipation and the concern and the wondering. The knowledge that once you commit, you're in it for the long haul. You don't get up with a tooth half-filled and say, "I can't handle it anymore today Doc, let's finish up tomorrow." You're pretty much stuck, and it always gets worse before it gets better. But on this day, I didn't have time to prepare and I didn't have any drugs.

I make it in to see the dentist, and he tells me I need a root canal. Soon. There is a bit of a language barrier. More specifically, an accent barrier. But we manage to communicate across the cultural divide, as he has apparently been observing my worst nightmares and taking exceptionally fucking detailed notes. He shows me the xray that shows how dangerously close to the root the cavity is, and how it's about to start really hurting. He explains that he can fill it, but he may hit the nerve and that would be bad. I did not go to dental school, but I'm guessing that if the dentist says 'bad' what he means is 'fucking agony.' I agree to have it done, and he begins to get ready.

Me: "Wait wait wait wait. You mean today, right now?"

Dentist: "Yes"

Me: "Oh my god! What kind of drugs can you give me?"

Dentist: "Just the novocaine"

Me: "Are you kidding?! Can I go get drunk first?"

Dentist: "Is joke?"

Me: "No really"

But no, despite what you may have seen in the movies, the dentist won't let you get hammered before he works on you. So I had no choice but to sit there and tough it out like a man. I laid back in the chair, they gave me a bib and a pair of goggles. A fucking pair of goggles?! When did they start doing that? They put the topical stuff on my gums to numb them before the novocaine shots. And then, in a move of unprecedented cowardice, I jumped up from the chair and called the whole thing off. I stopped them before they even started it. I just couldn't do it. No drugs? Not even an iPod to block out the sound of the drill? You've got to be kidding me. No chance.

The dentist, to his credit, tried to use psychology on me. He sat me down and started talking about the procedure. The intricate details of scrubbing out the roots and nerves in the holes in my skull and filling them with metal. I'm guessing that was to de-mystify the operation and therefore give me confidence. And in a way, it worked. It made me 100% confident that I couldn't do it. I tried to talk myself down from the ledge, but there was no use. I had found my happy place, and it was anywhere but the dentist.

I'm sure they made bets after I left about whether I would come back for my 8am appointment the following Monday. But they lost, because I did. I took an entire handful of Ativan, a dose of Immodium (you think I'm kidding- I'm not) and my iPod. I was a zombie by the time I got there (and I walked through downtown in rush hour traffic, to boot), but I made it to the chair and just tuned out. He did his thing, and I hated every second of it.

The worst part about a root canal is that there are so many worst parts that you can't pick which one to hate the most. Ten thousands shots in your mouth, keeping your mouth open for three hours, the inexplicable parade of torture instruments you see the dentist and his assistant pass back and forth in front of your face each time you're stupid enough open your eyes. And oh yeah, let's not forget the noise, inside your head, of an instrument actually drilling into the bones of your skull. Have you thrown up yet? Wait until you find out what drilled bone smells like.

Three hours later, the dentist starts packing it up. And I swear to god, he says to me, "I have some bad news." Did you ever have the acute feeling that you wished you were dead? I'm not talking about your high school goth phase where nobody understands you but Robert Smith, and you'll teach those jocks and assholes and they'll all be really sorry when they're at your funeral and they read your suicide note and you blame them for everything. No, I'm talking the sudden, overwhelming urge to kill yourself rather than endure what's about to happen in the next ten seconds. What, pray tell, is the bad news?

"I not finish, you come back tomorrow."

God, are you listening? It's not fucking funny anymore. I'm over it. If this is the way it's going to be, I'm checking out. If you thought the suicide note to the jocks was bad, wait til you hear what I've got to say to you. Clear your calendar.

(mouth full of gauze, head full of Ativan, soul full of generations of suffering condensed into three hours)

"Why?"

"Your tooth, it is problems."

You don't fucking say.

Turns out your average molar has three roots. This particular tooth has four. That means more work, more drilling, another morning at the dentist. The procedure has also become complicated because I have begun bleeding too much. Again, I'm no dentist, but I'm not exactly shocked that there has been some blood loss. He explains that he has filled the holes in my head with gauze, used pinball machine parts, and whatever else he had on hand. But if I come back tomorrow and be a good boy, he will try to finish. He actually said try, and he actually smiled when he said it. So, utterly despondent, I gather my stuff and walk home.

This time, the earliest I could get an appointment was 10:30am. Ever the optimist (that is so funny if you know her), Baby had the nerve to say, "Well, at least you can sleep in." Cause, you know, it's easy to sleep when you know you've got a root canal scheduled in the morning. But I took a potentially lethal dose of Ativan (how many milligrams are in a handful, anyway?) and walked back over to the dentist and finished the job.

What happened over the course of those two and a half hours during the second stint is somewhat of a blur. Crazy as it sounds, the combination of extreme anxiety, Ativan, and a veritable shit ton of novocaine knocked me out. Maybe my body just couldn't handle it anymore and I had no choice but to just lay there and take it like a bitch. I remember the dentist saying, "This part maybe is hurting" and then putting his hand on my forehead. I then remember crying out like a little girl before going limp. After that I just didn't fucking care anymore.

When he was finished, he told me about the necessary follow-up appointments and the concerns he had about the tooth immediately behind the one he just worked on. Apparently it's similar to the bad one, and it may need a root canal of its own. Consider this the first chapter of my suicide note. Are you there god? It's me, bryc3...

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, after all the anxiety, you still made it through. Good on you!

Kelley said...

That is hands-down the funniest thing I've read all week.

(I am truly sorry that you had to endure a two-phase root canal; I have honestly never heard of such a thing and it strikes the fear of God into my molars. But that was hilarious.)

bryc3 said...

ameloblast- thank you! recovering from anxiety (and i have had serious anxiety issues) involves telling yourself you're not going to die even when you feel like you're going to. but i'm telling you, there were times during the procedure when i wasn't so sure!

kelley- i'm glad you can laugh at my pain. no seriously, thank you. in between the sobs i've been laughing about the whole ordeal, too. of course, the leftover vicodin from my back surgery is probably contributing to that.

Lady Tiara said...

i was home sick on friday afternoon with a massive migraine, and i felt like death. kisses called me to say that y'all were probably not going to go out that night because you were having an emergency root canal. and even in my throbbing pain, i spared a thought for you, because i figured you were probably in bad shape. when i heard that you left the dentist without having the procedure i laughed so hard. and that just made my head hurt even more. thanks, dood.

Anonymous said...

dentists without xanax. that's one of the most frightening things i've ever heard.

didn't you have one of those fillings fall out on you before?

-steve

bryc3 said...

steve-

yeah, this one tooth has always given me trouble. mostly because i'm three-quarters yuckmouth and have a full set of playdough teeth. but hopefully it's bionic now.

lt-

i actually called baby on friday afternoon to tell her i needed the root canal and was going to be at the dentist all day. and to her credit, she actually didn't laugh out loud when i told her i was going to try it without drugs. needless to say though, she wasn't all that surprised when i called her to tell her i chickened out.

Anonymous said...

Dude... wtf. Was his office in a basement or just a full on dungeon? I had a root canal last year, I was in and out in an hour and it wasn't even that painful... The guy was a root canal specialist though and maybe that is the whole difference, it seems you went to the vet or something, I just don't know =/

Anonymous said...

OMG...I was searching the internet tonight trying to find out if Ativan is ok when going to the dentist and I stumbled upon your blog. Holy shit. If I don't die tomorrow, I'll thank you for the laughs! Who am I kidding...I should thank you now because I KNOW I am going to die tomorrow. After reading your blog...I'm sure of it. Root canal, here I come...and yes, my brain will be sporting a fair dose of Ativan! God help me.

Cathy

ps. I'm anonymous 'cause I'm clueless on the rest of the options...sorry...

bryc3 said...

cathy,

haha, i'm glad you liked it. ;)

i finally finished up my procedure the other day, and my tooth is fully restored and back to normal. i'm not entirely sure it was worth it, but it did, in fact, not kill me.

so hang in there, you'll make it. and just think of the funny story you'll have to tell when you're done.^^

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the pep talk...it worked. I took my Ativan-laden head over to the dentist this afternoon and had the beginning of my root canal done. He said I may have to come back because one of the "rods" didn't seem quite long enough on the xray. Oh well...I survived...I'm alive and after what I had dreamed up in my head, it wasn't really that bad. Oh, except for when he decided to put novacaine directly into the nerve because I was still feeling pain. Holy crap...give me natural childbirth any day (yes...I've done both)!!! Anyway, thanks again and I'm wondering...is there a way to "subscribe" to your blog?

bryc3 said...

Cathy,

There are ways to set up subscriptions with RSS feeds and some other kind of fancy interweb nonsense, but I don't know how to connect any of those tubes. The interweb is a complicated place. Sorry. :(

But that's great about your trip, and I'm glad it wasn't so bad after all. There must be a lot of people in our position, because I get at least a dozen hits a week with people searching Ativan + dentist. Maybe we should open a drug company!

On a somewhat related note, my mother just called me in a panic, because she gave my grandfather an extra Ativan with his medicine by mistake. She wondered if two would kill him. I said I wasn't sure, because I would never abuse it, but I was pretty certain he'd be okay. ^^