Thursday, May 17, 2012

Things You Never Want to Hear Your Dentist Say...

So lately I've been undergoing some medical treatments here in Turkey.  I had minor knee surgery a few weeks back (almost all normal now... yah!!) and just as that healing process was beginning, I found that I needed to have a root canal on one of my bottom teeth.  Now, I'm not a fan of dentists on the best of days (sorry dentist friends) but generally I can suck it up and deal with it.  However the pain in my mouth was atrocious and a root canal is not a pleasant experience (so I had been told).  But since the pain was so bad, I knew I could no longer avoid testing the dental system here in Turkey.
I went to the main campus health centre dentist (I'm working at a school that is part of a university here in Ankara) on the recommendation of a co-worker (both for price and for good work).  I was nervous on the first visit and the pain was beyond belief... in fact, for the first time in my life I all out cried in the dentist chair (I gave the dentist fair warning that it might happen).  I also didn't know that there would be multiple appointments for this procedure (today was the 4th of possibly 5 if I'm lucky... please cross fingers, toes and whatever you can that I am lucky).
Long story short, it's been a lengthy process and the pain was excruciating at the beginning.  The last two appointments have been better and better but today I heard him say something I'm pretty sure I NEVER want to hear a dentist say as my mouth is wide open and he is digging around in my tooth: "What's that?  What's that little creature?"  UH..... WHAT?!?!?!?!?! CREATURE?!?!?!?!?!  I nearly bolted out of the chair!  He smiled and said there was a little bug and showed it to me... I nearly flipped out and asked where it came from and he said it was on my sweater and it flew to the dentist tray... so no, not out of my mouth, THANK GOD!!  But he then proceeded to tell me that once when he was in the army he had to check a soldier's tooth and was trying to clean out the cavity when he struggled to get something out of it... that later turned out to be a SPIDER!!!!!!!  Yes, you read correctly, the man had a spider in his tooth!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!! Worst nightmare ever, can you imagine!??! 
Anyway, you can add that phrase: "What's that? What's that little creature?" to the list of things you'd never want  to hear your dentist say to you...

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