Jaw-Dropping Experience

Yesterday, besides playing with my template and finishing my paper TWO DAYS early, I went to the dentist to start the long, agonizing process of fixing the teeth that genetics has deemed me with.

Yes, my teeth are crap. I know this already. But I'm going to spend lots of my money and lots of my insurance company's money getting them fixed.

My new dentist, the guy who has yet to preach Christianity to me while I'm stuck in his evil chair, goes by the name, "Dr. Tom." This makes me want to gag a little, but he's a pretty nice guy and hasn't actually yelled at me yet. I think he's imagining how fast his new car will go after he's done with my mouth.

As it turns out, my teeth problems stem from two sources. My family tree and Coca-Cola. I can't change my family tree and I don't want to change my Coke habit. I've been addicted to it since I could crawl! (Seriously. My dad loves to tell the stories about opening a 16-oz bottle of Coke, putting on the table next to his chair, going into the kitchen to grab a bag of chips and walking back into the living room to see the last drops of the wonderful elixir dripping into my mouth. I love Coke. And it makes me happy. You like Happy Beth. You wouldn't like Unhappy Beth. She's not nice. She might want to throw peanuts at you. That's not fun is it? No. It's not. Beth is now referring to herself in third person. Beth is scared now.)

The good news? My teeth problems are not entire mouth problems. I do drink too much Coke and not enough milk (lack of calcium, hmmm, not a good thing with a family history of that long word I cannot spell: osteoporosis (I hope that's close to the correct spelling - at least I'm not trying to be a doctor, huh?)). You would think that with a mother who works for the dairy industry, I'd have more calcium in my diet, but what does my diet consist of? Um, what's in front of me? Coke. I do eat. I promise I do. I just don't have good eating habits. Well, I see this post is making me extremely attractive.

Okay, back to the teeth problems. Besides the Coke, my family tree dooms me. I have weak enamel. Everyone in my family does. I do however have good gums. Yep. That's what Dr. Tom told me. There's something to be proud of. When all my teeth fall out, I'll still have my gums. This is not sounding as positive now.

I was figuring the teeth problems would be much larger than Dr. Tom discussed with me. I have a tooth that broke from a really old root canal that the Preaching Dentist never capped. Maybe because he told me that Jesus wouldn't have teeth problems and so I never returned, but that's beside the point.

Oh, vant building up here. Jesus wouldn't have teeth problems??? What crack is this dentist smoking? I know that Jesus was a pretty important guy and all, but come on. He lived 2,000 years ago and dentistry has made amazing advances since then. Just because he's the Son of God doesn't mean he never needed braces. I never read the sentences in the Holy Bible that said, "And Jesus smiled and his teeth were perfect, shiny, and white. And the Apostles all bowed down to him." I guess I shouldn't say the sentences are not in the Bible, but I haven't found them. DM, do you remember this?

So I have this tooth that had a root canal 5 years ago and the tooth broke (it was mostly filling - yes, I loved braces. Especially since my orthodontist never sealed the brackets and that was a lovely month in the dentist chair after three years of not being able to clean my teeth properly. Do you see that I dislike dentists? I had a dentist once that I really liked. Then my mom got mad at a different dentist at that office and we had to leave. My mom brought me to the Bible-Thumping guy. And I had to pay for parking! Not good.)

I'm really not sticking to the subject tonight, am I? So the tooth broke. It broke when I went to Vegas. Not with DM, but when I went with Adam. I never did anything about it because it didn't hurt. Why didn't it hurt? Because I had a root canal and the nerve was completely killed by that experience.

Since the tooth is broken, Dr. Tom felt that tooth was the first one he should work on. He used the drill on it and was really nice. He didn't give me novacaine! I was so happy with this. I'm being sincere here. I hate novacaine. I can handle the drill. I can't handle the drill and then leaving the dentist office and THEN having the novacaine kick in. It never works right away and then I'm numb for four hours and I bite my tongue. Who wants that? Not me.

I need to do a post about how I pick up mannerisms. I just realized the reason for my lack of coherency. I went out with the women from work tonight and I'm writing just like one of the women on my team talks.

So after Dr. Tom drilled at my tooth, he filled the gap with some substance that has a similar consistency to gum. Except it's a bit more solid and not sticky. It's like old gum. That made no sense. He's going to crown the tooth on one of the next three appointments I have set up. The problem is that it feels like there is gum stuck to my tooth. I keep thinking I have food there and I know I shouldn't use a tooth pick (palillo - the one word I remember from my "Spanish" conversations at the Chinese restaurants. Manuel, the one I think is buried in the back yard of my former manager's house, needed a tooth pick. But he didn't know the word for tooth pick. He kept saying "Palillo" and I finally figured out that he wanted a little stick. Crazy what you remember, huh?) Dr. Tom might get mad if I go back and the "preventive" measure he took was no longer in my mouth. I don't get why he needed to prevent damage to the tooth for the next two weeks when I've gone almost four years with it like this, but whatever.

I don't know what the final bit of this post is. I've never been good at the endings. Maybe that's why I slacked off on my story after 32 pages. I really need to work on that again.

Good night! I've officially lost it now, I'll go to bed and have really strange dreams about dentistry, little sticks, and maybe some butter. I don't know.

3 Comment:

At 8:25 AM, CarpeDM thought...

"You wouldn't like Unhappy Beth. She's not nice. She might want to throw peanuts at you. That's not fun is it? No. It's not. Beth is now referring to herself in third person. Beth is scared now."

Beth may be scared but Dana is laughing hysterically.

"I never read the sentences in the Holy Bible that said, "And Jesus smiled and his teeth were perfect, shiny, and white. And the Apostles all bowed down to him." I guess I shouldn't say the sentences are not in the Bible, but I haven't found them. DM, do you remember this?"

Yes. It is right there in the gospel along with "And the Lord Jesus hungeth on the cross and spaketh. He saieth 'I dieth only for those that are whiteth, richeth & non-gayeth.' And the Republicans rejoiced for they kneweth they were noweth the choseneth people."

Yeseth. I ameth a dorketh.

Great post, Beth! Loved it. And you think you're not funny.

At 9:40 AM, Lala thought...

So let me get this straight:
you love coke
you have bad enamel, therefore more susceptible to cavities
Dr. Tom is a Bible thumping, parking impaired dentist

Look at all the typing I could have saved you!

oh yeah, you broke a tooth in Vegas!
*LOL*

At 2:05 PM, srmc thought...

I think it is a good thing you did not use the toothpick. For what would happen if instead of the gummy substance being removed, the little stick got stuck? LOL! Now that would be something to go to the dentist for. "ummmm Doc..... you see I have this little stick here...."