Grand Rapids....come for the churches, stay for the Nascar and Deer Hunting.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Oh....thats not good.
There are, I imagine, any number of phrases a soon to be dentist can mutter while slaving away at dental school, hunched over their patients, needle in hand. "You're going to feel a little prick" "Are you sure thats pain and not pressure? A lot of patients confuse the two." and "Oh, thats not good" immediately followed by "Don't swallow".
I can assure you that the "oh, that's not good" immediately followed by "don't swallow" bothered me the most.
I've had my thoughts concerning the other statements. Respectively: "you ARE a little prick" and "How bout you feel the pressure of my fist against your nose and tell me if it's pain or not?"
but the "Oh, thats not good" immediately followed by "Don't swallow" got to me. No snappy comback.
More like "What the FUCK!"
Lets hit the wayback machine and look at the events leading up to this predicament.
A long time ago...almost half my life ago...I was a poor bartender floundering through my 20's. Health insurance? nope. 401K? nope. Dental Plan? big fat no. Murphy's Law dictates that it must be at this precise stage of life that many wisdom teeth must be pulled. So while lamenting my oral woes with a friend over cold beers, he says "check out the U of M dental school. I had mine done there for like 60 bucks a tooth." I'm thinking...hmmm...60 x 4 is at least like 236 bucks....far less than the figure provided to me by the gentleman in the office with the nice music and the nice chairs and the diplomas on the walls and family and fishing and golf pictures on the desk.
It looked like the J-man was gonna save himself a little scratch.
So it was off to the dental school. It didn't have as nice an office and there was no music, but the chairs were comfortable and the people were nice. I can't believe, even now, that I was naive enough to fall for the nice people and comfortable chairs trick. God...what an idiot. A couple of days after my initial visit, there I was back at the dental school, signing waivers and sitting down in a not so comfortable chair. They save THOSE chairs for after you've signed the papers and stepped around back.
They put a bib on me, but did not bring out a tray of lobster. Instead, they brought a tray of novacaine. To have nitrous was 75 bucks extra. On my budget? Not a chance. So we start with the shots.
Lets hit the way forward machine now.
"You're going to feel a little prick" the my-agish dental school student said. Fine...I had heard this before...just get it over with. Shots in the back of the jaw, a couple more mini injections around the teeth on the left, shot in the back of the jaw (other side) and more mini injections.
"I'll be back in about 10-15 minutes to see how we're numbing up." Boy...we were numbing up. Definite lazy tongue not even tingling anymore kinda numbing up.
"So how are we doing here?" "numb" "Good good...lets get started."
So he grabs these mini-forceps-looking pliers and hunches over me. After some skillful manuevering, he's got a good grip on the first tooth and starts to really reef down on that sucker.
"AHHHHHHH" I say, cause it really really hurts.
He stops what he's doing long enough to pull the pliers outta my mout "that really hurt" I say and he says...you guessed it... "Are you sure thats pain and not pressure? A lot of patients confuse the two." "I'm sure" "O.k....lets give you another shot back there and we'll come back to that one.
So the tray of pliers gets swiveled to the back position and the tray of novacaine comes back to the front. Another hit to the back of the jaw, and I hear this little popping sound...kind of like a needle poking through the other side of a set of gums, immediately followed by this very cool cool feeling in the back of my throat and a very bitter taste filling my mouth and nostrils.
"Oh...thats not good" he says. "Don't swallow".
Then what does he do? He LEAVES the room to go get the senior "I'm here to supervise but actually have a nice office with nice music and chairs and pretty pictures" guy. Now...a lot of you have probably figured this one out, but for those of you who haven't made the leap yet...It's impossible to hold a pool of novacaine at the back of your throat ala Listerine, and NOT swallow. Maybe for 15 or 20 seconds....but definitely NOT as long as it took shithead to come back to the room with bossman who glared at him and told me to spit (what was left) out.
I'm numb. Really numb. Numb enough that my throat has closed up a bit. They said a bit. It felt like a lot. It was enough that they had to put the little 2 pronged oxygen thingy in my nose to pipe in some fresh air.
Once they had air for me to breathe, it was back to work. Shithead (I refuse to call him anything else for the remainder of this story) goes back to the same tooth that hurt the first time...gets a grip...and this time...I feel a little pressure, but no pain. See...I CAN tell the difference. Cool...this won't be as bad as I thought. I feel...more than hear, although it feels like I'm hearing it...the strange sounds of root leaving flesh and gum and then voila...out come the forceps with a little tooth in them.
Now we're cooking with gas. Grab the upper tooth...same sensation and bingo presto...another tooth. I'm sure that shithead, since I later found out that it was his first extraction, was probably thinking "hey...this isn't so bad."
On to tooth number three...a little pressure, no pain, and whoopsy daisy...shithead drops the tooth down the back of my throat. While I don't feel it hit the back of my throat, I am aware that it is there, because what little air passage was remaining after shithead squirted novacaine down my gullet has now been blocked off. Every part of my being was saying "Cough...gag...do SOMETHING to remove the obstruction." Folks...it just wasn't happening. Usually you breathe in first when you cough...can't do that very well...usually your throat muscles aren't totally relaxed when you gag. My throat muscles were so relaxed it was as if they had been Rolfed for 12 hours by Sven the swedish massage technician. Fortunately, shithead was able to pound on my back hard enough that the tooth came flying out and hit the floor. Then he put the oxygen tube back in my nose which had come flying out into my lap.
Finally...tooth number four. No big deal...shithead only snapped that one in half...the forceps slamming into the side of my faced caused more swelling and bruising than the actual teeth coming out, and then Mr. I'm here to supervise but actually have a nice office with nice music and chairs and pretty pictures had to come in and drill and tweezer the other half of the tooth out of my jaw.
There is salt in the wound for this story as well. Do you think I got even ONE lousy vicodin outta the whole rotten ordeal?...nope. Not even an industrial strength motrin. Not even a "sorry for puncturing the other side of your gums, numbing your throat, slamming pliers into the side of your head and almost suffocating you."
I didn't go to the dentist for a very long time after that. Coffee stains were easier to live with than to rekindle that fond memory.
I'm over it now though and I was at the dentist a little while ago for a filling.
She said my blood pressure was up for this visit (I still don't know why they take your BP there, but they do).
Name: Jonathan Home: Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States About Me: Just a guy who trying to eek out a living as a graphic designer in SW Michigan. See my complete profile
Name: Jonathan
