04 January 2011

It's the constitution. It's MABO. It's just... the vibe.

Went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago, for what I thought was going to be a simple cut and polish, ya know. Dude is a new dentist (for me). Had an unfortunate incident with my last dentist over, well... not paying the bill in a timely fashion. So seeing as this guy had been our family dentist for 20 years or something, he just thought he'd ring my dad up and ask him to pay for me. Even though i was 26. And not living at home. And not having seen or spoken to my dad for 2 years. Good one, dentist - could have just sent me a threat of legal action letter and I'd have paid.

ANYWAY, new dentist. Turns out you don't just go and get your teeth cleaned; you need to do things in order.

1. Go for assessment - real dentist looks and records what's going on in the gob. 'Fillings in 5M, 3I... small chip on 8U... Discolouration on 7D, 4Q and 8P' he dictates to the nurse... 'Are you a smoker?' he asks me - redundant question I would have thought. None the less, I try to respond to his enquiry as best I can, considering his blue-gloved hand is stretching my mouth wider than it's ever been stretched before. Response is something vague like 'I used to be', but he knows. He knows the truth.

So all this takes about 20 mins of poking around and talking in code, until he finally takes his blue-gloved hand out of my mouth and addresses me; 'You need a filling'. Not surprising, but still terrifying. 'Oh' I say, feigning bewilderment in a how could this beeeeee kind of way, 'but nothing hurts', I continue.

He picks up his little mirror on the end of a stick, pulls down the mirror from the roof and asks me to open wide again. 'Look!' he says 'You could drive a bus through there!'.

I am mortified.

Okay, thinks I... this doesn't hurt, I've kinda known there must be a filling coming for a while, I'm just gonna risk it, see how long I can go before it really hurts and I really have to pay it attention. It's going to cost money, it's going to hurt. I'm just leave it and see what happens, who knows, it might even fix itself!

Then dentist dude pipes up again... 'I'm getting the vibe off you'...
'Vibe?' Questions I.

This is not the first time someone has got an indescribable 'vibe' off me. Once I lived in a share house and we had a new housemate move in one evening, Italian chap, quite all right... anyway, I got up in the morning and he'd cleared out after only one night. The landlord later rang to let me know it was because he didn't like my vibe. I've never quite understood this.

Anyway, 'Vibe?' Questions I...
'I am getting the vibe off you that you're not going to come back' he says in quite an accusing manner, i thought...

New Dentist is on to me.

'Uh, no, i'm totally coming back!' I begin to over compensate...
'Tell you what, we don't usually do this... but I can do the filling now if you like' he says to me.

My heart begins to thump. I break into a cold sweat.

'Uh uh uh, no, I can't... I have to get back to work! I have to be home for dinner! I have to drive, you're going to need to sedate me....*nervous laugh*! The over compensation continues.


So I didn't get the filling done, and now I've ruined this dentist too and he thinks I'm a raving lunatic. Instead, I decided to make ANOTHER appointment (only another $133) to get the teeth cleaned, but I've promised myself that this filling will be done before i'm 30! BEFORE!*





* I have 39 days to get my shit together

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Wow. Seriously, your story made me burst into laughter! I was actually thinking about my next dentist appointment and stumbled upon your post. Reminds me of the first time I had to seek dental help. But unlike your experience, the trip to my dentist in Cookeville was a good one. I also had to have some treatments done. One reason it went well was maybe because he's been our family dentistry (Cookeville, TN) for years now. So I suggest you find the best dentist you feel comfortable with. Hope it would help. And good luck!