Week of Dentist Appointments

Years of not going to the dentist on a regular basis has caught up with me.  My wife has decided to make up for lost time by scheduling four appointments within one week; two days of deep cleaning and two days of filling cavities.  Last Friday, I completed day one of this tetralogy and my gums and my jaw joint are still a little sore.  I'm not looking forward to the next few days, but I plan on completing my wife's plan of action.  The only reason a root canal is not on this list of procedures is because I might be moving to Cape Town before the crown is made. 

My wife questioned if I should put this information on the blog.  She said "you might gross people out" and have everyone think that my teeth are rotting out of my mouth.  If this grosses you out, I'm sorry, its just one more thing I'm doing before the big move and consider it part of preparation.  Kind of like the immunization schedule I went through during December.  I'm sure Cape Town is full of great dentists, however, the last thing I want to happen is developing a tooth problem in the first few months in South Africa.    

Why haven't I gone to the dentist in years?  Well, during the last decade I have been a student and The University of Arizona doesn't offer dental coverage.  In addition, I never liked going to the dentist.  When I was a kid my parents were poor and rarely took to me to the dentist.  On the rare occasion that I had the opportunity to sit in a dentist's chair I was already in severe pain due to a toothache.   On one of those occasions, the dentist wanted to extract a molar.  I refused to even let the man inject my gums with anesthesia let alone pull it.  To avoid having this man enter my mouth and cause pain, I offered to pull it myself.  My guess is that I wanted to have control of the pain.  He squirted some topical anesthetic and handed me some strange looking pliers and I pulled it out.  He congratulated me and told me that I might want to become a dentist.  I didn't follow his advice. 

My next memorable dentist visit happened when I was in the U.S. Army.  I was in the field when one of my wisdom teeth was causing a severe tooth ache.  It hurt and swelled up so bad that the medic decided to have me taken out of the field.  They ended up taking me to an overworked army dentist with a long line of patients.  I had already spent a week in the field before this visit and I'm sure he didn't appreciate my stench.  He did make a comment like "Army Ranger, tough guy?".  When he said this, I knew this was going to be a bad day.  He ended up pulling out my nasty wisdom tooth seconds after he injected my gums.  Needless to say, the extraction was very painful and I sat there wishing I had my M-4 and it was loaded.  The pain subsided when I was standing up, a mouth full of cotton, and my mouth was finally numbing.  I think he was a little impatient and started pulling before the pain medication really kicked in.  After this experience, I really disliked dentists and didn't want to pay for an experience I disliked unless I really had to. 

Hopefully, my new job offers good coverage and I learn to go to the dentist more regularly and prevent painful situations.