what the dentist pulled out

My dentist draws some strange things from me. Not teeth... you'd maybe expect that at the dentist but thankfully I received the all clear this visit. No fillings, no removal, no need to even clean them. My teeth are in tip top shape. (Having said that, I am realising teeth tell an interesting tale of aging. My face may be unmarked, but my un-whitened, un-capped teeth are starting to give me away. I've taken to peering hard into other people's mouths to test my aging teeth theory)

No, my dentist draws strange, almost sardonic lines from out my mouth. He's a rather abrupt, jocular English fellow, quick with a quip and full of witticism about life. Perhaps that's his way of putting clients at ease, maybe it sustains him through the halitosis and decay confronting him every day, or quite possibly it is the only way to cut straight to meaningful conversation in the course of a ten minute checkup. Whatever it is, I find myself unable to give a simple, straight answer to his searching one-liners. Instead derisive snorts (it's hard to talk with your mouth full of steel implements) or wry reflections burst out of me.

Take the other day as an example. I had just picked up three counselling text books from the post office and was flipping through one while I waited for my appointment. 'Don't you like our magazines? Have to bring your own reading material?' he said as we walked through to his room. I sheepishly admitted to wanting to get into my study early.

Between forays into the gaps between my teeth he asked me why I was studying counselling. That's when I snorted derisively and said I couldn't remember now. What I didn't say was that I feel rather disgruntled with the whole affair and seriously don't know if I will ever pursue counselling as a career.

As I sat on the edge of the dentist chair, regaining my composer, wiping the last of the dribble from my chin and breathing a sigh of relief at my dental reprieve, the dentist supposed that counselling is only worth it if people want to change. And that's just it. What if people don't want to change? What if people can't change? What if the structures and systems of our society keep them stuck where they are and no amount of trying on their part will change things? Counselling is just too individual in its focus for me now.

So there you have it. I went to the dentist and, instead of discovering dental caries, my current thinking on counselling crystalised clearly in my mind. I have one semester, one enormous semester of study to go. I'll finish the course, get my Grad Dip... but I have a feeling I might not ever use it again. We'll see. Right now my thinking has moved on and I see more benefit in helping people by working on the systems that trap them in self defeating cycles. It's not all wasted though... I'll be really good at listening to you next time we talk!

well that backfired a little!

It's coming up to two years since I went through the whole dentist saga and I've been thinking I should do the right thing and make another appointment for a check up. I don't subscribe to six monthly or even yearly check ups... they seem to just be a way for dentists to make lots of money. Besides, I proved with ten years of drastic avoidance measures, that no matter how many times you might dream it is happening, your teeth will not suddenly start falling out if you don't check in with the dentist all the time.

Two years seems a reasonable gap to me, so I finally plucked up the courage to phone for an appointment this morning. There aren't enough dentists in this part of the world, so I thought if I phone now, I'll get an appointment in July and can gradually prepare myself for the jaw-aching onslaught.

Ha. That one backfired! Two dentists are on leave so my dentist has picked up extra days to fill the space. He had a spare appointment next Wednesday... and I'm now booked into it.

Excellent service. Far too good.
Seriously, I would rather have waited two months!

you can run, but you can't hide

Life is very, very busy this week. But mostly it's good, life-at-the-coal-face busy (as opposed to busy for the sake of busy)... my life is intersecting with others in what is hopefully a meaningful and helpful way. However good it might be, there still isn't much space for blogging. In the interim, here are a few things I have noticed:

It's so long since I've posted here Blogger forgot who I was and demanded I log in from scratch.

Even just one afternoon of rain will have green grass shooting up in an otherwise barren, drought stricken back yard.

I like teaching student nurses. It's a pity I don't like nursing much any more. I do however LOVE my new job as school chaplain in a poor area of town, and one day I promise I will write about it.

Italian farms don't like replying to emails written in English even if their website features an (oft times hilarious) English translation.

The world has gone a little texting crazy. At first, when the car service centre sent an SMS to remind us of our up coming service and followed it up with a 'how was our service? reply 1 ok or 2 not good and we will call you' message I thought it was great. Unfortunately today I received a text advising me my one year dental check up is due from June 1. Hello?! After a ten year dental break I think I can go more than a year without a check up. Leave me alone!

And that's all I have time for. I hope you are all well and I will get back in touch soon. Hopefully on the weekend!

note to self

When the dentist says 'be careful with eating until the numbness wears off', he isn't just referring to avoiding very hot or very cold food and beverages. He means 'don't eat anything'.

Full stop.

No matter what you might think, the superb strength displayed in holding your mouth open for a dizzying length of time is admirable but not worthy of a sweet treat. Pretense at calmness and bravery in the face of anxiety is to be commended. But not rewarded with sugar. Attempts to fall asleep as the drill drilled and the suction sucked are noteworthy... but should not be repaid with chocolate-coated, raspberry-flavoured licorice. (Don't even think about the nasty food colourings in that one!)

Because when your mouth is numb, you can't feel anything. Not anything! Not your gums, not your teeth, and certainly not your lips.

Which might explain why your lip started bleeding as you chomped rather clumsily through both it and the chocolate-coated, raspberry-flavoured licorice. The painlessness of the lump and bruise cannot hide the sad truth that you suffered a self inflicted injury because of your foolish misinterpretation of the dentists instructions. While he thought you were sensible because you were donned in a nurse's uniform you have shown yourself to be rather silly.

Next time - heed the words of the dentist and don't eat anything!

(Four hours later and I still have a numb lip. But I didn't feel any of the drilling! Marvellous!)

d-d-d-d-dentist day

It's 10pm on a day that will be forever coloured by that trip to the dentist.

Actually the colouring started before today - last night was a night of fitful sleep and wild, disjointed dreams broken only by the coming of dawn. The morning was busy, but not even shopping allayed the dread anxiety that steadily crept up my spine. I flossed my teeth (twice), performed an energetic Listerine mouthwash or two and declined lunch. Nothing but the freshest of breath here!

Faining nonchalance, I strolled into the dental surgery and set about waiting calmly. Not that my pinched expression gave away my fear or anything. Or the sharp snap of my book closing as I read the same line ten times.

Finally - "Cecily?" Why do dental nurses dress in ridiculous smocks decorated with dancing molars? It is not cool. It is, however, mildly distracting when your mind is working feverishly to produce a good excuse for not visiting a dentist in almost ten years.

Not that the dentist was taken in by any of my excuses. Or the fresh breath. Instead he asked disgustedly why I'd chosen to burden him with ten years worth of dental work in one brief checkup. I think he was joking. In case he wasn't, I begged him to be nice.

In the end he was nice and didn't find too much beneath the fresh breath to complain about. Only two fillings required, one crack that isn't worth fixing at present, no need for a clean as (funnily enough) those pegs were sparkling, and no, I do not have rampant gum disease. I just need to swap to an electric toothbrush. Unfortunately the excessive tooth brushing damage is done and I will always have recessive gums. That's the price you pay for clean teeth I guess.

Oh. the. relief. I almost collapsed at the counter as I made my follow up appointment. In fact I almost cried all over the secretary! Can you believe it? My teeth won't need replacing with dentures in the next year or two! No need for root canals! No excavations of previous fillings to drill out more rot! No ripping out of my wisdom teeth? No rap over the knuckles?!

After all that stress and build up, it was a truly delightful trip to the dentist. One of the best I've ever had.

If this surprises you, you need to know my long history with dentists in order to understand why two fillings is good news. Dentists and me? We go a long way back together, and it isn't pretty. In fact we go back to the dim, dark days of the eighties when, instead of listening to pop music, I was reclining in a dentist's chair...

My first memory of visiting the dentist was as a nine year old visiting the small dental caravan parked in the school grounds of Coonabarabran. There I was convinced the dentist was a Christian. (She said "Thank God for that" after all!) I don't remember what she did to my teeth, but I remember she was less than impressed that I was not allowed to rinse my mouth with brain stunting fluoride alongside the other students each week. I didn't care - they all hated it I was top of the class.

Somewhere around the same time I started being called 'buck tooth beaver'. There were just way too many enormous teeth for my little mouth, so at the age of ten out a few came. At twelve, out came a few more. (Though not enough, according to today's dentist. My mouth is still too crowded)

In true collector style, I kept some of these teeth and stuck them in my journal. In even truer collector style, I kept the journal and tonight was able to dig out the teeth and present you with this prize photo. Note the decay... as I say, I have a long, long history of dental caries and dentists.

From there it has been a down hill slide, with more and more fillings of dizzyingly scary proportions. At the age of 22, as a superbly good looking dentist turned his back, I foolishly let my tongue explore the hole he'd just drilled in my molar. More than half the tooth was gone. Since then I've been beset by visions of toothless gumminess that crept into my dreams and troubled my daytime thoughts.

If you would like to know the pros and cons of needles over gas - I'm your woman. If you need advice on how not to make a fool of yourself in front of dishy dentists - I'm also your woman. (Hint: don't open your numb lips to speak without first wiping away any potential dribble that may run down your chin leaving you mortified) I still wince at the memory of that drilling pain and any kind of suctioning sound sends a chill down my spine. Such is my knowledge and obsession with decaying teeth and dental chairs that in high school I took to writing copious journal entries about them:

With this wealth of dental history behind me, I find myself not even a little surprised at the depths of my terror today. There was great potential for calamity. That it was not calamitous has lifted one giant weight off my shoulders. It's also convinced me that ten years breaks between check ups are not advisable. Though of course, if my teeth are this healthy after ten years, I probably don't need to go for another five...

So the moral of the story is... most of what we face in life is not as bad as we imagine it will be. So stop stressing and live! (And be thankful for the availability of dentists to keep your teeth in shape!)

a chilling message

I'm the kind of person who loves getting messages of any kind. Cards, letters, email, blog comments, phone calls, text messages. If it's for me, I'll take it with glee.*

Generally my mail consists of nice, heart warming messages, unless it's a bill... but every now and then a freak message sneaks through and shocks me.

Like the messages left on my voice mail when I lived in London. A strange man with a deep European accent kept asking to meet me. Somehow he found my number, mistook me for a hooker and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. It was a little disconcerting. Was he staking out my flat? Following me around the city? Tracking my movements? Was it a prank by a friend? After my third desperate attempt to convince him I really was not a hooker and definitely did not want to meet him, he apologetically retreated and didn't call again. I can only surmise that somehow my phone number made its way onto one of those delightful escort advertising cards, famous in London phone booths! Wonder what 'my' picture looked like?!

Anyway, all this came flooding back the other day when I received a text message that sent chills down my spine. And not because they got my name wrong:

Hi Cecil
Just reminding you of your appt on Tues at 1:45pm Braeside Dental

Oh my. It's really happening. After ten years I'm really going to the dentist. And they've reminded me, so I can't even claim I forgot. There's no escaping it. I have to go. My teeth are chattering just thinking about it.

This is far, far worse than being mistaken for a hooker.

*OK, so I'm not so great at sending cards, letters, email, blog comments, and text messages. Or making phone calls. I apologise if you are one of those who has experienced my neglect.