Dental Plan: Part I

The dentist is rarely an enjoyable experience. This is why I (quite shamefully) managed to stay away for a long time. Much longer than the six recommended months. The idea of going back began to haunt me. I started to crumble under the weight of visions of a dental grim reaper, wielding a scythe-shaped drill. I finally cracked out of fear. A few weeks ago. I walked into the Russian dentist's office expecting the receptionist/hygienist to tell me, teeth unseen, that they'd have to pull everything because of my irresponsibility. To my relief she said no such thing. And instead we discussed my insurance over the din of a high-pitched buzzing noise that seemed to be coming from some kind of light situation to my right. It sounded just like a drill. I hung my coat up and waited patiently for Dr. Death to call me out. I flipped through a set of coupons for a Sonic Air, which all dentists apparently approve of. I'll get one, I thought to myself, because surely I'll have perfect teeth if I use it every day. I also began chastising myself for waiting so long. Three and a half years, ok? Yes, I waited that long. All I had to do was go. But I didn't and here I was, "Catherine, come on." Sigh. I took my seat on the dentist's chair facing all of his instruments. And a first for me: a flat-screen monitor flashing a slideshow of his family. There was a son and daughter-in-law, a granddaughter, and a wife. For twenty minutes. Pictures from Easter, lazy Sundays with the family somewhere far outside the city. I bet they all have perfect teeth. The doc came and headed straight for the counter. No one looks more like a cartoon character than this guy. Salt and pepper hair and a mustache to match top his head and face off. And the rest follows in step. A bulging belly, though seemingly under control, hid beneath his dentist scrubs. His arms were hairy, his fingers pudgy. And the ring on his pinky finger stuck out to me, because, as I would soon find out, he didn't hide it under gloves when he stuck his hands in my mouth. He didn't seem one of very many words. He did find some though when he repeated my greeting with a grin. "What's up?" It sounded funny coming from him. He said it just so. He approached me with both hands, splitting my mouth wide apart, inspecting. Knowing full well I hadn't had this done in a while. I couldn't even remember the name of the last one. After I helped him take my X-rays by holding the X-ray thing with my finger, placed just so, he turned to his monitor and cleared his family off of it. And there were my teeth. He mumbled some stuff under his breath but I heard a few keywords. "Decay." "Nerve." "Dead." Wonderful. "So what's up with this tooth?" I asked him pointing to my left front one. He looked closely at the X-ray. "It's ok. Just dead nerve. But not to your gums so is ok. Maybe you hit it at some point." I did do that. When I was about four years old, my mom and I were headed somewhere. The airport maybe. As she loaded the bags in the trunk, I somehow lost my footing and fell face first into the back of her blue maverick. I cried a little I think. I must have. And then ran to the rearview mirror to inspect my work. And that's my first memory of my gap. I was sure that my headlong fall had been the cause of the space between my teeth. Nothing my mother said could convince me otherwise. I was certain that I had just altered with my clumsiness the gapped path of my two front teeth. Decay. I had some. And he wouldn't have been able to see this decay had he not looked at the X-ray so it's really great that he did that. He climbed into my mouth with his pick then his drill. Drill, drill, drill. "You see this? The decay." Oh. "Oop, there's the nerve." He mumbled some stuff to himself and ordered the hygienist to go get something. She returned with the thing she was supposed to return with and he went after my nerve. I asked to see it as he pulled it out of my mouth, but he said I wouldn't be able to to. "Like thread." Ok. He then drilled some more and filled me up. "Are you gonna clean my teeth today?" "No. It's too much for one time. If I clean you, too, then I'll probably kill the person next door." Oh. He told me to rinse with the water sitting to my left in its place on a tray. I did so and watched the remnants of decay slip down the drain. When I turned back around, he was gone. The hygienist took off my bib and told me to follow her. "I have to come back?" "Yes, he needs to continue the root canal." "What?! He just gave me a root canal?" "Just the first part. What he did was get rid of the decay. Down to the nerve. When you come back, he'll take out the temporary filling and fill that in and cover it with another temporary filling. You'll come back the third time and he'll fill it permanently. That's the root canal." "I have to come back two more times? He can't do it all at once?" She looked at me like I was crazy. "No. It's too much for one sitting. Oh, I see we're booked next week. Can you come in Monday at 3?" "I have a meeting that ends at 3." "Three-thirty?" "Ok." Sigh. A root canal. Me. Not that I have perfect teeth or anything, because, clearly, I do not. But the term is so "ew you had a root canal?" Yeah, I did. And this was just part one....