Of cavities and super glue pt3

Entry for July 08, 2008

I would have to say that today was a particularly good day.

As per my last post, today was foremost ‘dentist day’.

I decided that seeing as the day was going to be cut reasonably short anyway it would be a good idea to book my truck in for a warrant of fitness in the morning, that way I could walk back to my house from the testing workshop and spend the morning lounging around waiting for my vehicle to be tested and trying to calm myself in the face of the slowly rising sense of dread for the afternoons coming events.

I had given my truck the once over and figured I was up for at least a couple of hundred dollars worth of remedial maintenance work that I simply couldn’t be assed doing myself before it would be given the o.k. So you can imagine my utter disbelief when I front up to the testing workshop to have the mechanic say “sweet as bro, she’s all good and that’ll be $40” – Stoked! So far so good, let’s just hope the dentist’s appointment goes half as well.

Yesterday, I decided, being that I could now open my mouth wide enough to get my fingers in there, that I should check the offending tooth for looseness. This was a decision I soon came to regret – I can’t be certain but I believe at the first touch I may have gone into shock and passed out for several moments because apart from a return of that obnoxiously loud gong and the lightening I can’t really remember a great deal. I resurfaced still atop my seat (thankfully) at the dining table but the left hand side of my face had been repeatedly bashed by some mysterious invisible assailant armed with a mallet. Was it wiggly? I had no idea and was not soon about to check again!

So back to today - at about 2.00PM I made my way over to Titirangi to meet my new dentist. His name is Rashid and I’m starting to dread even his name. I kept thinking to myself ‘gawd don’t let him be one of those officious little Indian bastards that comes off all – ‘you are velly, velly silly man’ because at this point I am a silly man with a very sore tooth, no patience and my nerves are pretty well shot as well.

Fuck with me now bastard and Im going to punch someone, mostly YOU!

Turns out I couldn’t have got it more wrong. Rashid is a young guy who greets me with a completely kiwi accent and a flippant sort of “gidday mate, hows that bloody tooth”.

You can’t begin to imagine the degree of relief that I was feeling about then.

So he gets me into the chair of great pain and death and he’s so casual and friendly that I’m starting to feel a bit guilty about the sort of mess I’ve made with all the super glue and Iodine and Janola that this really nice guy is going to have to now deal with. So I start to confess to my multiple sins before he has to have a look in there and he stops and listens while explain that it might be a little difficult to see exactly what’s going on due to my having to temporarily fill the cavity because the pain was a little intense.

Now - I’m expecting his attitude to go from amicable to scolding but no – third nice surprise for the day, he puts his tools back down and with a look I couldn’t really read having just met him, asks me to explain to him again the process for filling tooth cavities with liquid acrylic.

He laughed so hard it was a bit frightening and when he realized I hadn’t convinced somebody to drip the glue in the cavity but had managed to get it in there by myself with only minor inconvenience, I thought he was going to wet himself.

He finally composed himself and started to examine my teeth and asked me why I had not filled out my doctor’s name and the date of my last doctor’s visit on the questionnaire I had filled out in reception earlier. When I had made my appointment last week I had mentioned the infection that was ravaging my gum and jaw and he assumed I must have done a course of anti-biotics for that to have been cleared up.

Again he put down his tools and listened to my method of infection containment and once again he laughed so hard when I told him about the Janola and Iodine rinse that he had a little coughing fit and had to get himself a small glass of water.

Anyway he looks at the bastard tooth and without a moments hesitation says to me “yup, it’s got to go”.

Sweet no shitty root canal for Daryl.

So – a quick x-ray and two injections later and we’re good to go.

A bit of grunting, a couple of slip off’s, some weird creaking noises and the cursed tooth is gone.

Bliss.

After he cleaned the tooth up a bit he got out his camera and a little note book and started to examine it taking photos and writing notes in his book. He took the time to show me where the glue had run into the tooth and rather than fill the entire cavity it had instead made it’s way around the inside of the cavity and sealed the nerve endings into their canals. I guess it’s hard or illegal to find guinea pigs in this field to try these things out on so they gather what information they can from fools like me who try things out on themselves. The bottom line was he felt that really I should be applauded for being innovative in the face of a desperate situation and that Iodine rinses work extremely well on mouth infections, so no harm was really done. 4th nice surprise for the day.

It is only fair to admit at this stage that he was not impressed when I told him, in answer to his question, that the reason my teeth were so very white at the front in comparison to the back was most likely due to my discovery that, Jiff works really well on teeth. And despite my protestations that the labeling gave strong indications that it would not damage enamel and did not operate by harsh scratching he would not be convinced

Ah well two out of three aint bad.

Rashid likes me and he is my friend.

It was a good day.