Such a day came about yesterday when I found myself with a dental appointment in which I had to have 4 or 5 fillings at 10am, followed by a 3 hour tattoo sitting at 1 pm. Ouch.
The dentist was.... horrible. The dentist herself was a lovely person, but the dentistry was horrible. I have a deep-seated and not entirely irrational fear of dentistry after a series of trips to the dentist a few years ago. The first thing that did it was meeting..... the Dental Hygenist.
No. You didn't read it right. Read it more like in a booming, tombstoney kind of voice. Like...
...The Dental Hygenist.
He was an absolutely huge, hulking man, with the delicate touch of an obese rhino, and his way of showing me that my gums weren't sufficiently healthy was to lean over me with his hugeness, poke my gums really hard, repeatedly, with a sharp and pointy metal thing and say "You see how easily it bleeds? See? See?!"
After that came the wisdom teeth. Yes. Two wisdom teeth were removed under a local (LOCAL!) anaesthetic, and a couple of hours of listening to bones being shattered with a hammer and pulled out of your skull with a pair of pliers will pretty much put you off dentistry for life. Just to hammer the nails in to the proverbial coffin, I got an infection after the procedure and my face swelled up to the extent that I couldn't open my mouth wide enough to get the anti-biotics in. I had to drink soup through a straw. For days.
So, it was with some trepidation that I arrived at the dentist yesterday. It was with considerably more trepidation that I watched the ABSOULTELY HUGE needle being inserted into my mouth to numb me up. Getting numbed up hurts like hell - it makes your jaw ache for days after, and unfortunately I have really high tolerance to medication. This means that I need loads, and regular top-ups, so I needed about as much anaesthetic as a small horse with a drug habit. After three goes I was finally, and blissfully rendered numb from nose to ear and everything in between.
Drilling commences and I spend 30 minutes literally stiff as a board, fingers arranged in a grotesque, rigormortis-like pose, stomach muscles quivering, fighting the strong, strong urge to shut my mouth and bite the dentist.
Fillings duly done, shaking like a leaf, I headed home to meet Kal. I had to go home via the shop to buy straws because I had discovered when the dentist asked me to rinse out my mouth that I was drinking with the fluid ease of a chronic stroke-victim; pinkish bubble-gum scented liquid merrily and attractively dribbing down my chin.
We had tea (tepid and through a straw) shared stories and laughed at my atempts to smile, lick my lips and speak, all of which made me look like I was attempting to audition for an amateur dramatics production of the Elephant Man.
Then it was time to head into town to get my new, shiny and beautiful tattoo...
Pictures and story to follow :)
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