Adentalventure

So, today's dental visit went pretty much as expected. And then some. We go to the dental school to

have our teeth worked on and a couple of weeks ago I was informed that I needed 3 (count'em) new fillings! However, when I went in today I thought I was going in to get my teeth cleaned. I was quickly disabused of that notion by the dental student who whisked me back to her lair and strapped a bib around my neck. The hot dental student I'd had last time popped by to say that he was still with his 9:00 patient so Banshee.....he was wearing a mask so I mayn't have heard correctly, but it sounded like..... "Banshee is just great and she'll be doing your filling today."

Okay. Damn.

Banshee immediately got to work stretching my mouth open with an object roughly the size and shape of a life preserver. By the time she got it all stuffed in my mouth, she really needed an assistant mopping her brow. My mouth, in agony, and of sufficient proportions to house a fleet of aircraft carriers, had been rendered incapable of voicing the curse words I so longed to utter. Out of breath and testy, Banshee told me to hold on to the suction hose used to clear out the excess saliva (and blood? would this procedure involve blood? specifically, my blood?) and instantly proceeded to place it just out of reach.

To be sure, Banshee's bedside manner left something to be desired. After numbing me up with a giant q-tip dipped in cobra venom (okay, maybe not exactly that), she produced an insidious, steel-encased needle dripping with something even more numbworthy. "There's gonna be a little prick," she said just before sliding the needle in. And while I've heard that before and it's never proved true, Banshee, in this case, turned out to be right. Being already mostly desensitized, I felt surprisingly little pain.

That accomplished, Banshee displayed an impressive array of instruments and sharp objects.

And then the games began.

There was much scraping and drilling and digging, while a plethora of metallic implements appeared and disappeared as my head was tilted first one way and then the other whilst I reached vainly for the suction hose that hovered tantalizingly on the tray behind Banshee's elbow. Finally copping a clue, Banshee applied the suction, relieving me of a generous supply of saliva (and blood?) that had pooled in my mouth. Expecting her to hand over the hose, she, instead, returned it to the tray and proceeded to get back to the business at hand. After a couple of minutes she stopped, and I heard this:

"Uh-oh."

What? Uh-oh? Looking up I noticed that Banshee had abandoned her torture apparati and fled the scene. Propping myself up further, I finally saw her speaking to a masked and gowned woman whom I assumed must be her supervisor.

Meanwhile, lying there with my mouth fully dilated, I pondered the possibilities. What did she see in there? Uh-oh? That can't be good can it? Is there really a good way to spin it when medical personnel peers into someone's bodily orifice and says "uh-oh"? I was beginning to drool so I reached over, grabbed the hose and gave myself a quick suction. Shortly thereafter, Banshee and her supervisor (?) returned.

After taking a long, hard look in my mouth, the supervisor straightened up and said, "It looks like this is going to be a little more involved than we thought. The cavity goes below the gum line so....."

Of course it does. Why would I expect anything less? So, Banshee came back with the dripping needle and injected me with some more of the numbing agent and I figure it'll be next Tuesday before I regain enough use of my mouth to eat solid food again. I heard the supervisor tell Banshee something about making a notch and doing something with "the pit" before hoofing it down the hall and leaving me alone, once again, with my tormentor.

I'm not sure if Banshee was trying to get to the notch or get out of the pit but whatever she was doing apparently required her to rest her full weight on the right side of my face while she was doing it. With the mouth-stretching device directly underneath her arm, the situation very rapidly deteriorated when it started jabbing into my unnumbed gums. Unable to speak harsh words, I managed to say OWWWW, to which Banshee replied, "We're almost done."

In fact, we were not. However, she did rearrange her weight and even brought over the suction hose a couple of times. After a brief and ill-advised period of comparative relaxation, I suddenly noticed something that looked suspiciously like smoke emanating from my mouth, followed by a burning smell. WTAF? Did she somehow catch my mouth on fire? She's a dental student--student being the key word--so, I reasoned, there was always the possibility that something had gone disastrously awry. After all, there was smoke and something was clearly burning. If flames started coming out of my mouth, what then? Do I attack Tokyo? Achieve liftoff? Would this be written off as a case of spontaneous combustion so that my survivors wouldn't sue the college? Banshee spritzed some water from one of the contraptions she was busily brandishing about in my mouth and soon the fireworks (and my overactive imagination) subsided. A short while later, she proclaimed the deed done and fetched the supervisor to critique her work. ("Good job!" said the supervisor, before hurrying away to examine the teeth of another).

The life preserver in my mouth was removed with much less toil than what had been required to insert it. I bade Banshee adieu and practically sprinted down the stairs and out the door. The next filling is scheduled for Nov. 4 and I am already filled with dread. I wonder if the hot dental student will be back in the saddle then? Surely it won't be Banshee. Surely.