The dentist’s office, Part 2

Posted Dec 2, 2008 by Mike Winter

Updated Dec 2, 2008 at 03:22 PM

Well that didn’t work, although for a while there it looked like it might. My daughter was in the chair. She had the mask with the “happy gas” over her nose and was staring placidly at the ceiling while my wife sat hunched in the corner with her hands fisted beneath her chin and a look of grim endurance on her face. Tess had listened to the dental assistant’s explanation of the instruments with apparent disinterest. She was unimpressed with the little gismo that was going to squirt water on her “cavity germs” and wash them away. I however, was flabbergasted. Apparently dental technology had progress light-years in the four weeks since my last cavity was filled. In the dark ages of October, my dentist had to use a drill on my tooth. Sure, he numbed me with approximately 600 CCs of novocaine and distracted me with a long and rambling story about his brother converting his pickup to run on used cooking oil and now his clothes smelled like French fries which made the neighbor’s dog go crazy and run around in circles every time he came home. So in essence I felt nothing other than a vague craving for fast food and a growing conviction my lower lip was now puddled in my lap. Still, it was the principle of the thing. Here was my daughter, reaping the benefits of some astonishing new technology that washed cavities away like mud and I had to suffer through drills and vacuumed hoses and blasting caps and who knows what else?

The dentist entered my daughter’s room with a bright “hello!” and set about reassuring her nervous listener that all would be well. It seemed to work for the most part. My wife stopped shivering like a Chihuahua in a blizzard and settled back into stoic rigidity. My daughter, on the other hand, appeared to be drifting somewhere between The Island of Misfit Toys and Toon Town. She seemed a bit anxious when the assistant reclined her chair, but when a toy fish was waved in front of her eyes she was mesmerized. I’ve never experienced the effects of nitrous oxide myself, but I was beginning to envy her – although I’ve always found it a bit disconcerting that that same substance used to supercharge hotrods is administered to sedate humans.

Once my daughter was in position, it was time to start. The dentist wheeled up her chair and complimented Tess on her beautiful brown eyes (my wife’s contribution to her features, although I can take credit for her left nostril, both earlobes and the bottom third of her chin.) My daughter took the compliment with her usual good grace, assuring the dentist that “fish eyes don’t have lids.” A drawer was opened. Instruments rattled. The assistant grabbed a bite block and said, “Open wide!” Tess opened wide. The assistant wedged the piece of plastic into her mouth. Tess sat up and pulled the hose off her nose. “OK!” the dentist said in the same, bright and happy tone as before, “we’re done for today!”

I glanced at my obviously relieved wife.

“We don’t want her first experience getting cavities filled to be a bad one,” the dentist explained.

“That will stay with her life,” the assisted confirmed. “We don’t want to traumatize her.”

“That would be bad,” I agreed.

“Awful.” My wife placed a hand our daughter’s head. “So now what?”

The answer seemed obvious. We would have to dedicate the coming years to brushing her teeth 35 to 40 times a day, flossings between every breath, shooting high-pressure jets of fluoridated rinse into her mouth when she yawned and eliminate all sugars, carbohydrates, milks, proteins and starches from her diet in a all-hands-on-deck effort to stave off further decay until her baby teeth fell out on her own. It would take a monument effort and I would probably have to quit my job and forgo sleep for 56 months, but there was simply no other way. None whatsoever.

“We’ll set up a new appointment and give her a valium beforehand.”

“You’re going to give my daughter valium?” My wife looked like she could use a doze or two at that moment.

“It’s very safe,” the assistant assured her (the dentist had already zoomed on to the next tike’s filling.) “We do it all the time.”

So next week we’ll be back. And my daughter will get a valium to calm her down enough so that she doesn’t fiddle with the hose that’s giving her gas to sedate her enough so that the dentist can squirt water on her teeth and wash the “cavity germs” away.

This should be interesting.