Life as I Know It

My chiclhood memories include Saturday trips to the health center to pay a visit to the dentist who is also my father’s childhood friend.  My mama didn’t have many friends outside her profession so those visits were really more like social calls.  And I always had fun.  Auntie Baby used to praise me for my teeth.  You see I used to have a pretty set when I was a kid.  I had none of those sugar cavities.  I was proud when my mama pulled out my first baby tooth.  Who wouldn’t?  It looked like it didn’t need a replacement.  And I was excited at the thought of getting a new set.  I believed they will be as nice as the old one.  But then the tooth fairy became extra generous and replaced them with really large ones. 

In my teens, I gracefully accepted that I would never be in a close up commercial.  Not with my teeth fighting one another for a breathing space!  Overcrowding that’s what it’s called.  And in our part of the mountains in those days, braces were used for construction and not for the teeth. But I didn’t complain.  For me, it was enough that I don’t suffer from toothaches.  Come to think of it, there might not be an occasion that I used “toothache” as an excuse for not going to class.

When my Auntie Baby relocated and I went to college, I never had my own dentist anymore.  And since I was brought up to be “praning” about my mouth, I was forced to visit several here in Manila.  Perhaps that was when I started to dislike dental visits.  The ones I went to were never as gentle as the one I grew up with (and perhaps I’ve always looked for the warmth and friendliness that I’m so used to).  Since then, any dental visit resulted to a low fever, a cramped neck, or worse a prolonged toothache (it was only then that I knew what toothache really meant).

But I never realized until very recently that there is indeed something called dental torture!  Doctors used to say I had low tolerance for pain.  But in the life of me, nothing compares to taking out an impacted wisdom tooth!  After consuming 4 vials of aneasthesia, getting acquainted for the first time with “lock jaw”, enduring what seemed like endless poking and drilling, shedding buckets of tears, and mentally cursing at the company dentist who REQUIRED me to undergo this procedure, I was free of my “wisdom tooth”.   The 2-hour procedure was sheer torture.  Sukdulan!  I can’t begin to tell where I ache.  Everything seemed to hurt.  And just when I thought I was done, the doctor had to tell me to open my mouth again for a 3-stitch suture.  By then, the aneasthesia was again wearing out.  I suppose what sustained me was the mental picture of me doing the entire procedure to that company dentist minus the aneasthesia.  Such murderous thoughts replayed countless of times in between gargles, deep breaths, and wiping off tears and saliva.

And here I am 3 days hence.. still grouchy at the experience - with a face that still looks like a pandesal is hidden somewhere.  and still tense at the thought that I’ll go back to the dentist by the end of the week for check up.  Nice… just nice!