Warning: Tangent ahead, but I promise, there’s a point.
About a year ago, I went to my 6-month teeth checkup, and the dentist told me that I had a cavity on the bottom back left and another on the bottom back right. Since I was about two years overdue for a checkup (and didn’t floss every day), I wasn’t surprised.
One week later, I was back to get my fillings. I sat down in that terrifying chair that looks like something aliens use to probe specimens. The drilling began.
My teeth are really sensitive, so no matter how many shots of novocaine she injected (3 or 4), I still felt pain. Here’s how it went with the first filling. She drilled. I winced. She stopped. We took a short 1-minute break. She drilled. I winced. We took a break.
We went on like that for about 20 minutes — all the while she kept telling me it was a tiny cavity and that it shouldn’t hurt. Yeah, OK, whatever. Maybe if she actually stuck the needle in the nerve and not just some random place in my gums, it would have worked.
Anyways, she finally finished and suggested we put off the second filling until the next visit in six months. I thought to myself, “Uh, won’t my cavity just get worse in 6 months??” I was in enough pain already though (with beads of sweat to prove it) so I agreed despite my concerns.
I ended up missing that next appointment.
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