Drill, Baby, drill!

I went to the dentist yesterday.

As long as I can remember I have had lousy teeth. As a child in the fifties and sixties I developed multiple tooth cavities by the time I was ten. In those days the only solution was a terrifyingly slow belt-driven drill that splashed pieces of enamel everywhere and literally caused smoke to waft from your mouth.

The dentist had to stop every so often to let the drill cool down so he could continue to torture me, unavoidably.

He said hopelessly soothing, sympathetic things. All I remember is that the shots of Novocaine were excrutiatingly painful and seemed useless in the long run. The pain of having my teeth drilled shot like a volley of needles through every nerve of my rigid body. The antiseptic smell, swathed in wisps of tooth smoke, was nauseating.

We didn’t have air conditioning. The doctor, his assistant and I all sweated profusely.

This went on for hours.

I was a child. I cried piteously before, during and after each visit.

State of the art dental science fifty years ago was arguably worse than fifty years prior when all a dentist could do was give you a stiff shot of whiskey and yank a tooth out of your head. That, at least, was quick.

They also did shaves and haircuts.

Yesterday I received two root canals.

The room was cool, my mouth was numb and my head was clear. Fearlessly and without a single flash of pain I chatted amiably before and after the procedures with the dentist and his assistant.

The only moment of discomfort I felt was when the assistant leaned into me as I was supine before her. Her right boob accidentally mashed against my arm which I was unable to extricate for fear that any movement might be misconstrued as something inappropriate.

Fifty years ago Dr. Clifford would have never filled my mouth with tools. He needed to get his hands in there.

Yesterday my mouth was propped open by a rubber block the size of a PT Cruiser spare tire. I had a wire bracket framing my mouth. Stretched across that was a thin, stretchy sheet of rubber which allowed the dentist to isolate the tooth he was working on and not forget where he was.

That seems like a good idea to me.

I also had a saliva-sucking vacuum hose in my mouth, constantly on the move and under the impeccable direction and guidance of the booby assistant.

There were clamps and odd-looking gadgets, a pair of pliers, I believe, and I’m not positive but pretty sure he also hung a rearview mirror and a rubber-bulbed bicycle horn on my mouth.

“Feeling comfortable?” he asked.

© 2010 by David L. Williams, all rights reserved