Heart and Mind

Like Being in the Dentist's Chair

I've never gone to the dentist more than once in any given week. Until last week.

When I went to work last Monday, I had no plans of going to any dentist appointments during the upcoming week. Who'd have imagined that by the end of the work-week on Friday, I'd have logged in four visits to dentists and dental surgeons, and that I'd be post-op with another upcoming surgery scheduled within the next few weeks. What a week it was for my teeth.

But it gives me a good opportunity to talk about an expression I use a lot. I will frequently make comparisons by describing a given scenario as "like being in the dentist's chair." I use that expression to describe things that are just plain awful, but their true misery can only be felt in the actual moment.

You see, everyone knows that it's not particularly fun going to the dentist, especially when anything beyond a routine check-up is in order. But we don't quite remember why. Oh, sure, we remember that the last drilling or poking was unpleasant or painful, but what does that mean?

Pain and discomfort is a difficult thing to assess. At doctor's offices, I sometimes see a series of smiley-faces on the wall that begin with a smile upturned and end with a smile downturned. You're supposed to indicate how much pain you feel by pointing to one of those pictures. A pretty inexact science, I'd say.

When I say something is like "being in the dentists chair," it means that it is an absolutely miserable experience, but one might never fully remember that unless we're living in the precise moment where it's happening.

Even when you're pumped full of novocaine, there is a sensation like nothing else I've ever felt when someone is drilling and slicing into the nerves in your gum line and mouth. Nothing. It can be amazingly distressing. And I kind of know that—from an academic standpoint—as I type this and and whenever else I express this. However, when I'm actually in that moment, and the drills and knives are digging into my tender nerves, it is then that I always think to myself, "Oh, wow! Now THIS is why I always say the dentist is misery. I remember now and it makes perfect sense!"

Here's the crux of it. You know how they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words?" Well, the misery of heavy dental work is so unbelievably acute and intense that it's like the "a hundred-thousand words." It offers an amazing sense of clarity to the reality of the situation that no words, picture, or reproduction of any kind can do it any justice. You have to live it to believe it and understand it to that degree.

And once we've lived it, we still won't remember it. About 5-minutes after I had gotten up from the chair after experiencing some of this misery, I found myself talking to one of the nurses about my upcoming surgery. We were working out the details of the cost and insurance and one variable that came up was whether I'd be having local or general anesthesia. I said, "Given a choice, I would strongly wish to have a local." She said something to the effect of, "Oh, bless you!" because apparently that's much easier and cheaper, but not the one a lot of people are willing to have.

"You'd be surprised how many people just want nothing to do with being awake for any of it," she told me.

I was more than willing. But I shouldn't have been. I should have been in a position where I said, "After that ordeal, knock me out cold, too!" But the trauma I had experienced already seemed diminished. While standing in the lobby, I was thinking, "I can handle a little poking and prodding. No problem!" But if it were possible for someone to ask be at the precise moment when those nerves were being tapped, my response probably would have been, "Please kill me right now."

posted by Steve @ 9:04 PM