A TRIP TO THE DENTIST – OUCH!

This week I paid my dentist a visit in order to start the process of putting a new crown on one of my back teeth. I was hoping it would be an uncomplicated procedure that didn’t involve a lot of shots in my mouth, but my hopes were in vain.

The first clue I had was when he brought out the Q tip with the blue gel gobbed up on the end. Then I knew. After numbing the back corner of my mouth, he stuck what looked like a jack hammer with a needle on the end back there and began digging around. As soon as the solution started going in, I felt it all the way up my face. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, after emptying the first needle, he stuck another one in the gum on the front and back of the tooth.

Soon, every part of my face was paralyzed. I was even having trouble blinking my left eye, and the vision became blurred on that side. “At least,” I thought, “I won’t feel any pain when he starts work on the tooth.” WRONG!! I could feel the pain every time he touched the drill to it, but I didn’t want any more injections, so I kept quiet.

While all this torture was going on, I entertained myself by listening to his receptionist. She has the type of Southern accent that has a “y-u” in every other word (hel-yup, i-yut, we-yull --- just take out the “yu” to see what she was really saying). She even managed to make the word “pretty” into three syllables; it sounded something like pre-itty. I sat there fascinated. It reminded me of the time when Ashley once tried to buy a map in Alabama, and the girl couldn’t understand her because she didn’t say “ma-yup.”

Anyway, at last all the drilling and the plaster casting (the taste of that was awful!) were over and I was on my way home. I decided that a nap was in order so I could sleep off that deadening feeling. So that’s what I did. (I'll use any excuse to take a nap.)

When I awoke, the whole left side of my face, including my ear, was sore. Advil to the rescue!