Homesick
Yesterday I was so homesick I almost cried. The person I missed most in the world was... Dr. Condos, my dentist since childhood!
You will have read how I broke a tooth a month ago. I found a dental clinic in Sacramento specializing in the poor and uninsured and took the first apointment they had, almost a month away. The apointment finally arrived yesterday. I realized that morning that I didn't know where they were, so I called and left a message asking for directions and headed for the address on the answering machine, 6950 65th Street, having never been past about 1900 30th Street. As I pulled into the parking lot, the receptionist called my cell phone to give me directions, oh well!
I waited for close to 2 and a half hours, watching disturbing day time tv, reading People magazine, and listening to the bilingual receptionist answer most of her calls in Spanish. Finally I was shown to a room, the kids koom, walls hung with encouraging messages about keeping away mouth bugs and pictures of CareBears. Somehow this made me more scared. I have never been to a dentist besides Dr. Condos in my life, except maybe his old partner once or twice. His cozy Main Line waiting room looks like a beach house, and the walls of the exam room are full of paintings of baseball stadiums and photos of his children, who are about my age. He helped ween my sister off her pacifier, rewarding her with Barbie paper dolls, and he rebonded her front tooth for free as a wedding present. He still asks about our goat who died easily 15 years ago. And he always explains to you just what he's going to do and why.
It did not help that this strange dentist had a thick accent and I could only understand about every 7th word. I decided to just pretend I was in Mexico and be glad there weren't chickens running loose in the hallway. He told me I had a very deep cavity and I might need a root canal. With desperation in my voice and visions of bloody dental massacre, I told him I was traveling and I just wanted something temporary. It may have been wasteful not to just get a permanent filling, but I felt better thinking that the next dentist down the road might speak clearer English.
Then I realized I was going to get novocaine. I hate needles, especially in my mouth! I have only had it once before. My breathing was shallow and every muscle in my body was a knot and it felt like everyone in the world who had ever loved me was dead, I was that alone. I lived through the novocaine and then came the drilling. I was sure he was going to hit a nerve and I was going to lose consciousness, you know how you can feel the drill coming close? Finally that was over and they shoved some stuff into the gaping hole and I was released.
I held my cheek to keep it from falling off. When I went to pay the receptionist looked worried and said "Does it still hurt?". "It just feels funny," I said.
I was so relieved to get out of the cold, unfriendly clinic (in all fairness, the receptionist was really very nice, but she couldn't overcome the pervading gloom of the place), but I was just so sad for my poor face, unable to feel or protect itself. I clenched my jaw just to feel that no part of my mouth was going to get lost.
I had to go right to a babysitting job when I got back to Grass Valley, and it was a relief to talk to someone who cared that my tongue was a useless slab of meat inside my mouth and my smile drooped on one side. Ruth dropped baby Adrian and I off at the park and over the next hour my face returned to me. It reminded me of when I used to model for art classes, limbs were going to pins and needles all the time, and it was sometimes painful to get them back, but there was always something I could do to help them along. With this all I could do was wait.
I had a whopping headache from all the clenched muscles, and I went to bed about 7:15. Today I am just fine and can hardly believe I suffered such trauma just yesterday. This past spring, I had a wisdom tooth removed (the other incidence of novocaine) and it ached for a couple of days, and it took my jaw a little while to realign. A nurse held my head through the whole extraction, my mom drove me, and stopped at Whole Foods to stock me up on ice cream afterwards, and my sister attended me through the night.
Yes, I survived alone, but I prefer to survive with assistance.
(editor's note: spellcheck on the fritz!)
You will have read how I broke a tooth a month ago. I found a dental clinic in Sacramento specializing in the poor and uninsured and took the first apointment they had, almost a month away. The apointment finally arrived yesterday. I realized that morning that I didn't know where they were, so I called and left a message asking for directions and headed for the address on the answering machine, 6950 65th Street, having never been past about 1900 30th Street. As I pulled into the parking lot, the receptionist called my cell phone to give me directions, oh well!
I waited for close to 2 and a half hours, watching disturbing day time tv, reading People magazine, and listening to the bilingual receptionist answer most of her calls in Spanish. Finally I was shown to a room, the kids koom, walls hung with encouraging messages about keeping away mouth bugs and pictures of CareBears. Somehow this made me more scared. I have never been to a dentist besides Dr. Condos in my life, except maybe his old partner once or twice. His cozy Main Line waiting room looks like a beach house, and the walls of the exam room are full of paintings of baseball stadiums and photos of his children, who are about my age. He helped ween my sister off her pacifier, rewarding her with Barbie paper dolls, and he rebonded her front tooth for free as a wedding present. He still asks about our goat who died easily 15 years ago. And he always explains to you just what he's going to do and why.
It did not help that this strange dentist had a thick accent and I could only understand about every 7th word. I decided to just pretend I was in Mexico and be glad there weren't chickens running loose in the hallway. He told me I had a very deep cavity and I might need a root canal. With desperation in my voice and visions of bloody dental massacre, I told him I was traveling and I just wanted something temporary. It may have been wasteful not to just get a permanent filling, but I felt better thinking that the next dentist down the road might speak clearer English.
Then I realized I was going to get novocaine. I hate needles, especially in my mouth! I have only had it once before. My breathing was shallow and every muscle in my body was a knot and it felt like everyone in the world who had ever loved me was dead, I was that alone. I lived through the novocaine and then came the drilling. I was sure he was going to hit a nerve and I was going to lose consciousness, you know how you can feel the drill coming close? Finally that was over and they shoved some stuff into the gaping hole and I was released.
I held my cheek to keep it from falling off. When I went to pay the receptionist looked worried and said "Does it still hurt?". "It just feels funny," I said.
I was so relieved to get out of the cold, unfriendly clinic (in all fairness, the receptionist was really very nice, but she couldn't overcome the pervading gloom of the place), but I was just so sad for my poor face, unable to feel or protect itself. I clenched my jaw just to feel that no part of my mouth was going to get lost.
I had to go right to a babysitting job when I got back to Grass Valley, and it was a relief to talk to someone who cared that my tongue was a useless slab of meat inside my mouth and my smile drooped on one side. Ruth dropped baby Adrian and I off at the park and over the next hour my face returned to me. It reminded me of when I used to model for art classes, limbs were going to pins and needles all the time, and it was sometimes painful to get them back, but there was always something I could do to help them along. With this all I could do was wait.
I had a whopping headache from all the clenched muscles, and I went to bed about 7:15. Today I am just fine and can hardly believe I suffered such trauma just yesterday. This past spring, I had a wisdom tooth removed (the other incidence of novocaine) and it ached for a couple of days, and it took my jaw a little while to realign. A nurse held my head through the whole extraction, my mom drove me, and stopped at Whole Foods to stock me up on ice cream afterwards, and my sister attended me through the night.
Yes, I survived alone, but I prefer to survive with assistance.
(editor's note: spellcheck on the fritz!)
posted by Eiren at 12:41 PM
4 Comments:
These are the times that the "there is no time and space" argument just doesn't cut it. I can so identify. Ya gotta love those healing nights of sleep. I'm going to send a copy to Dr. Condos is that OK? It will totally make his day.
XXOO
Mam
These are the times that the "there is no time and space" argument just doesn't cut it. I can so identify. Ya gotta love those healing nights of sleep. I'm going to send a copy to Dr. Condos is that OK? It will totally make his day.
XXOO
Mam
These are the times that the "there is no time and space" argument just doesn't cut it. I can so identify. Ya gotta love those healing nights of sleep. I'm going to send a copy to Dr. Condos is that OK? It will totally make his day.
XXOO
Mam
These are the times that the "there is no time and space" argument just doesn't cut it. I can so identify. Ya gotta love those healing nights of sleep. I'm going to send a copy to Dr. Condos is that OK? It will totally make his day.
XXOO
Mam
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