Under the Knife

I have avoided dentists with all of my might for a long time. I finally decided if that if I am going to be adding years to my life by cutting out the bad stuff, I am going to need my teeth too. So much for my original plan of living fast, dying young and leaving a good looking corpse. It worked about as well as using Y2K to get out of debt. Secretly I also wanted to be told I should give up coffee to keep my teeth white so I would have another reason to not trust dentists. Anyone who recommends that I stop drinking coffee will immediately go on the watch list and will not be trusted. My precious and I do not need them and will not frequent their establishments.

After some poking and prodding, and being hooked up to some contraptions that I saw in photos of the Spanish Inquisition, NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition, I get the verdict. The dentists points to an X-ray and tells me I should be in pain. I tell him that aside for some sensitivity to extreme cold I haven't noticed anything and I can power through a little tingling when I am eating ice cream. He doesn't even crack a smile. I have a dentist with no appreciation for self deprecating humor. He explains that I will be having a root canal on my next visit and directs me toward the person who will make payment arrangements.

This is not a practice with which I am familiar. Every other doctor I see just bills me what the insurance does not cover. These dentists act like loan sharks dealing with dead beats from the get go and will not even schedule the procedure without also making payment arrangements. While I understand and almost admire this trust no one policy of theirs, it also makes me want to delay payment for as long as possible. Let's stretch this thing out so I can pay it off with my pension. I am in no hurry.

That was a little more than a week ago. This past Monday I went in for the root canal. The last dental procedure I had was when I was 19 and had my wisdom teeth pulled by a Navy dentist. I do not remember that being so bad. I was awake through the whole thing, but my mouth was as numb as a stone. This was pretty much the same thing. The dentist was doing his thing with drills and whatnot while I had a wedge holding my mouth open and a dental dam keeping stuff from falling down my throat. The assistant and the dentist carried on a conversation for most of the procedure. I wouldn't say they pretended I wasn't there. It was more like I was there but I was only a mouth and completely detached so that the rest of me was not there. They even wiped stuff on the towel they had placed on my chest. I found this to be oddly intrusive and somehow borderline dehumanizing. Sure I am okay with them sawing up my teeth and pushing and pulling around in my mouth with sharp instruments, but wiping the debris on the towel they placed on my chest bothered me. Yeah. I'm a freak. I am considering waiting a month or so and seeing if I can refinance my payment plan. Maybe I can get a better rate somewhere else.