Final Dental Visit, Part Five.

Two of the three teeth waiting for permanent crowns had been anesthetized now, and the dentist and her technician turned to the third, non-deadened tooth to cement its crown into place.  The dentist placed the molded porcelain cusp onto the tooth, pushed it down and seemed to be pleased with the fit.  Then she pulled it off so the bonding cement could be applied to it.

ZING!  I practically leapt out of the chair and the dentist, two of her gloved fingers deep in my mouth holding the little nub of a faux tooth, struggled not to lose her grip on it while it was still in my mouth.

That was the worst jolt yet because the onset of the pain was so sudden, unexpected and intense.  She took her fingers, clutching the crown, from my mouth and said, "It's the metal on its base that creates that shock effect on the tooth, but we'll deaden that tooth too before we place it in permanently."

As yet another long needle appeared before my face, I croaked, very earnestly, "I can't wait for my ten-mile run back to my house as soon as I leave here."  "In the rain?" she asked.

Final Dental Visit, Part Four.

The dentist came back in and after looking at the fit of the new crown on the top side, she pulled it off so it could be emplaced permanently.  Zing!

"Sensitive, huh?" she remarked, seeing me wince.  "We'll just shoot that up with a mild sedative before we go further with it."

The long needle loomed in front of my face, carrying with it the prospect of needle holes in both sides of my mouth, again.  I sat there glumly, mouth closed tight, for fifteen or twenty seconds composing myself while both women waited patiently before I opened my mouth to accept the shot.

It had been a long three months at the dental office and my pain tolerance was definitely weakening.  While the Novocain took effect on the second tooth, they started in on the lower tooth on that side, the only non-deadened tooth left of the three being worked on that day.

Final Dental Visit, Part Three.

A little background on my final dental visit this year (hopefully).  In any case, come the thirty-first of this month, I'll have to find a new dentist if the need for further dental work comes up because that's when my dentist is retiring.

Friday was a miserable day, raining, with the DC area awaiting the possible approach or arrival of Hurricane Joachim, and did I mention that the dentist's office is at MP 17 of the W&OD Trail and my house is at MP 7?  Yes I did in a previous post about my dental visits, and I showed up for this final appointment in my running togs with a Metro card (I took Metro to the visit), a credit card (to put the couple thousand plus "change" charge on) and a bottle of water.

Back to the action in the dentist's chair--after a come-to-Jesus moment when the tech removed the first temporary crown with her prongee, she placed the permanent crown on and it fit in nicely.  Maybe it'd be alright after all, I thought.

I still hadn't found the rear exit in the back of the chair, though.  It turned out that I really should have known where it was.

Final Dental Visit, Part Two

The first thing that happened as I settled into the dentist's chair on my final visit, to get three permanent crowns cemented in, on three of the four far-back teeth in my mouth, two lower and one upper, was the dentist shot the particularly sensitive tooth up with Novocain.  She left so the sedation could take effect, and the technician hooked her metal prongee-thing under the temporary crown on one of the other teeth, the one on my upper left side, and jerked it off.

Zing!  "Did that hurt?" she asked.

I nodded miserably.  It was going to be one of those mornings at the dentist's office.

She wrapped the metal point of her prongee in cotton linen and gently rubbed off the residual cement from the tooth surface.  No further pain was provoked, yet.

Running From The Dentist

Because my dentist is retiring this month, I decided to take care of all of my dental problems before she leaves.  She's excellent, and how could I trust anyone else?

Got an extra six grand this year?  Send it to me.

There's a reason that I don't go to the dentist, unbidden by an actual problem.   My dentist wryly commented that my pattern of dental health was emergency management.

Well, yeah.  It hurts and it's expensive.

Final Dental Visit

In my imagination, I'm in Dr. Lipscome's dental office alone on Staten Island as a 10-year old boy over half a century ago, getting seven cavities filled without Novocaine or a parent present; this is not so uncommon back then, either the shocking lack of sedation as teeth are drilled or the lack of a parent accompaniment, as confirmed by friends my age from the same region.  It manifested itself in my psyche when I became an adult as a refusal to go to a dentist unless it was absolutely necessary.

But stuff happens with your teeth.  It's even promoted these days that you should go get your teeth cleaned twice a year (!) by persons who scrape sharp-pointed metal prongs around your teeth.

Ever felt that metal pronger touch somewhere on a naked tooth that produces the Jolt even if you are sedated?  The sudden pain is enough to catapult you out of your seat.

Now well into the next century, no dentist would go any further when he or she sees you jerk in pain without stopping and shooting you up with more with Novocain, and then waiting for it to take effect.  Today I went to the dentist to have three permanent crowns emplaced.

Heathcliff Is the Model

I'm reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.  Here is a quote from it that I dedicate to the mother of my three children who, during our divorce proceedings last decade, acted in concert with a coterie of agenda-driven "professionals" to overbear the wills of these tender young minor children, the end result being that their dad was ripped away from them extra-judicially.

On the night she dies, narcissistic Catherine bespeaks her true inner self to her paramour Heathcliff, the dark foundling who bestrides the pages like a super egoistic Iago.  All will be destroyed at the altar of self-worship.

"' I wish I could hold you,' she continued bitterly, 'till we were both dead!  I shouldn't care what we suffered.  I care nothing for your sufferings.  Why shouldn't you suffer?  I do!  Will you forget me?  Will you be happy when I am in the earth?  Will you say twenty years hence, 'That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw.  I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her, but it is past.  I've loved many others since; my children are dearer to me than she was, and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her, I shall be sorry that I must leave them!'  Will you say so, Heathcliff?'"