A Life Worth Living

When I was 14, I had a psychopath for a dentist.

She believed that I had some sort of gum disease and was intent on "getting the dirty blood out". Every visit to the dentist (about one every three months) was filled with dread as she would brandish the sharp thing that every dentist uses and proceed to poke at my gums.

I couldn't see what she was doing, but I'm quite sure she would run the sharp thing down my gums and take bits of it out. I was left with a rather bloodied mouth by the end of every visit.

Naturally, it did not take long before I begged my mother to stop these visits.

I have not been to a dentist since then. Oh, there was a visit a few years back when I had a dentist look into my mouth to see if my wisdom teeth were growing fine. They were, and that was the end of that visit. He tried to get me to have my teeth checked and cleaned, but I very politely declined.

It's been more then ten years since a proper visit to the dentist, but because of that, a lot of friends have found out that I'm a little pedantic when it comes to oral hygiene. Where possible, I would brush my teeth after every meal and floss every evening. I even used to carry a toothbrush in my handbag, but now simply leave a spare toothbrush and toothpaste at work.

There was no way I was going to a dentist in the near future, and I would ensure I have good dental health to make sure no unplanned visits happened.

Well, I just went to a dentist this morning. Nothing sparked it off, I simply felt it was high time I paid a visit to one. I could have a mouth full of rotting teeth and be toothless before I turned 30. If that was going to happen, I guess I wanted to know now.

On my way to the dentist, there were only two thoughts running through my head.

"What have you gotten yourself into Mel?" and "Oh God, help me."

The dentist was a rather happy cheery sort of guy. He took some x-rays and then proceeded to peer into my mouth. What he said next completely relaxed me.

"You have wonderful teeth. There will not need to be much work here. All we have to do is some scaling and cleaning and you'll be fine," he said. "I'll have to retire if everybody had teeth like yours."

The scaling and cleaning was slightly painful, my entire body tensed up and tears actually did run down my face. The sound of whatever he was using next to my teeth made me want to curl up in a ball, and my entire mouth feels extremely funny right now. But it was a relief to hear that there were no big dramas. Or attempts to "get the dirty blood out".

Well, he hasn't processed my x-rays yet, so I could still have some work that needs to be done.

There's blood lining some of my teeth right now, but it's good to know that not all dentists are psychopaths. I still wouldn't jump at the chance to visit a dentist and would probably continue to avoid doing so as best as I can, but I guess it's not that bad.

Ten more years to my next appointment!

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