Dental Work

The dental appointment I had went fairly well. First, I should explain that I'm terrified of the dentist. I once had a dentist when I was a child who was incredibly mean to me. I bit him, and it was all downhill from there. Needless to say, an experience like that can change a kid's life. Because of that horrible guy (I even remember his name, though it's probably not a good idea to include it), I've always had a hatred of dental offices.

Then, as soon as I start to get comfortable with them again as a teenager, I get the idiot dental assistant who screwed up one of my teeth during a routine cleaning. As a result of being a twin, I have pocked enamel on my teeth, meaning the surface of my teeth is not smooth, but rather litter with tiny little pockets. Apparently, this idiot dental assistant thought that they were the result of excess plaque or something because she tried to scrape them off. Literally, she tried scraping the pocks out of one of my teeth. This wouldn't be so bad if she hadn't dug a gouge into one of my two front teeth. The gouge is actually still visible today.

This most recent appointment was just to get a couple of cavities filled. It went pretty smoothly, actually. I was doing okay because of the chatter of the dentist and the dental assistant. We turned on the TV to CNN so I'd have something else to focus on to ease my tension, and the doctor and assistant were talking about the news of the day: Lindsay Lohan's court appearance, the BP oil spill, the finale of Lost, the season finale of House, etc.

I was doing really well until I saw the flecks of blood on the dentist's rubber gloves. Talk about freaking me out! I kept my cool. I managed to keep it together and not freak out too bad. My breathing got faster, my eyes got wider, I grimaced a lot more, but I didn't lose it. I'm pretty proud of the way I handled myself. The blood came from my gums--the cavities being filled were at the meeting points of two teeth. Because of their location, the dentist had to floss in between them with plastic stripping in a certain way and it made me bleed. The gums are still really irritated right there and sore, but it looks better now.

On the downside, I'm running a low-grade fever right now, and my back is aching like no other. I don't know if those things are in any way related, but it's making me miserable. I can't find a comfortable position to save my soul. My body keeps alternating between hot and miserably uncomfortable to cold sweats. The good thing is that it's coming down. My temperature is starting to normalize--leave it to the nursing student to monitor the change in temperature. I did sleep a little bit, but I woke up as a result of some loud video-game killing happening at the foot of my bed. After that, I simply couldn't seem to get back to sleep.

Hopefully, after some decent rest, I'll be feeling much better.