2007 November

We should completely abandon the process of waterboarding terrorist suspects. We should send them to American dental offices where I assure you they will admit to anything in short order.

I’ve been dreading my latest trip to the dentist for several weeks. I needed two root canals. Up until now, I’ve never had any dental procedures more complicated than a filling. I’ve never had a dentist hurt me at all. But the phrase “Root Canal” just sounds friggin painful, doesn’t it? My friend Jamie assured me that it wouldn’t hurt. I read about 30 articles online that said the same thing. I was nervous nonetheless.

I arrived at the office, signed all the paperwork and settled into that comfy chair. The dentist came in and actually used a topical numbing agent on my gums before she injected the anesthesia. I was thrilled. I didn’t even have to suffer through the shot. She began drilling on the larger of the two teeth and I felt nothing. She drilled, poked, and scraped for quite a while while I happily stared out the window feeling no pain. I marveled at the progress made by modern dentistry. It was amazing.

The only discomfort came from this rubber dam they use. It’s this weird device that looks like a surgical glove. They clamp it over the teeth that need treatment and, in theory, it’s supposed to keep you from swallowing all that rinsing liquid. It keeps your mouth opened very wide and from what I can tell makes you look very similar to Hannibal Lecter.

After finishing the first tooth, the dentist left me to attend to some other patients. She was gone quite a while and as I still had that latex thing holding my mouth open, I was a little bit uncomfortable. But I felt this was a small price to pay for a pain free root canal.

When she returned to begin the second tooth( which she said would be the “easy” one), things changed. I felt the drill immediately. She injected more numbing medicine. She started again. The pain was so intense, I was literally trying to crawl out of the chair. Isn’t it funny how your body reacts to pain in a primal way? It’s like your brain is screaming “Get out. We don’t care if you are embarrassed, we must get away from this.” The dentist is apologizing profusely and finally tells me she must inject the meds directly into the tooth. I have no words for what that felt like. Tears were gushing from my eyes and the sweet little assistant couldn’t keep up with them. Then came the blood. Lots of it. The dentist said the tooth must be infected because it was bleeding profusely. Did I mention all that infected blood was running, unchecked, down my throat? Yummy.

Finally she decided that there was no way to finish that procedure until the infection was gone. So she proceeded to inject a syringe of some kind of medication into the hole that she had drilled into the tooth. That felt about as bad as you are imagining but honestly, at that point, I was so exhausted with pain that it barely registered. She put a temporary filling on both teeth and told me that we could “finish up” at my next appointment. Goody…

Here’s what I have learned from this experience…

1- If your husband leaves you without insurance, find a way to maintain your dental health anyway. Borrow, steal, whatever.

2- Jamie and the internet are sadistic liars.

3- A search for a picture of “latex dental dams” will lead you to some weird sex toys. Don’t try it.