Drill Me, Baby
It is only eleven o'clock and I have already gotten a filling, had Savannah's retainer installed, been to the grocery store, and fed the kids today. Why can't I be this productive every day?
While being drilled on I noticed I could feel it and my eyes popped open and I gave him that look. I am sure it resembles a look of panic. I was not panicking but just trying to politely let him know that I could feel the drill. He stopped for a second and then continued on without even offering to re-numb me. It wasn't intolerable enough for me to want to sit there and get another shot in the jaw and wait another fifteen minutes either.
He proceeded to tell me what an easy patient I am and that he had a big burly guy in there yesterday who cried and had to have the nurse hold his hand for the shot and then whimpered and moaned and cried the whole way through the procedure. He said that he understands that people have different pain thresholds but that this guy was just being a complete baby and that they were all embarrassed for him that he was doing so in public, even after he was clearly numb. He said that normally people are trying to jump out of the chair at the least bit of sensitivity but that he has to watch my eyes because I never flinch or move just give him a look with my eyes that says something is wrong. At an opportune moment when there were no tools or hands in my mouth I told him that Mommas are just tougher. Kind of hard to explain that a little drilling is nothing compared to being skewered through the abdomen several times or having a tube shoved up your inner arm through your muscle tissue and across your chest and down to your heart, or a tube ran up a vein in your thigh and up across your pelvis and shooting plastic beads into your arteries that feel like fire, or giving yourself shots into bruises on your stomach or having an NG tube shoved up your nose and then down your throat all while puking bile uncontrollably. Then there is the whole giving birth thing. Three times, even. Not that I had my choice in any of those circumstances but somehow a little half-assed sensitivity while drilling the teeth just doesn't seem so bad anymore. Some people don't even get numbed for fillings. I am not one of those people. I am not a pain junkie, I can just handle more than some. If there is a way to prevent it I am all for it.
Posted by gwendolyn on July 15, 2004 at 11:23 AM