Dentist tales

I had to go to the dentist today, which was unfortunate because (a) I don't like going to the dentist, but even more so because (b) I had just been to the dentist to get a couple of fillings (because my teeth are terrible and I always have cavities no matter how well I brush/floss/gargle—I mean, seriously: my dentist/hygienist is always like, "Wow! Your teeth are so clean! There's hardly any plaque build up at all. This is remarkable! Do you have an electric toothbrush?" Why, yes, I do. Thank you. I am religious about my dental hygiene. "You do a great job. Also: three cavities." And I'm always like how?! Why?! Ugh.).

Anyway...

I had just gone in to get three (3) cavities filled on October 28th. All on my bottom teeth, but on both sides of my mouth and we went ahead and filled them all at the same time and it took forever and my mouth was so numb. When they finished (around noon) they were like, "You should be numb for another hour or so..."

And I was like, "Okay, great. So I should be regaining feeling by...5:00 or so?"

I didn't say that out loud, of course, because my mouth was embarrassingly numb and I couldn't form a single word properly. It was all I could do to keep from drooling. But I know how my body reacts to pain medication (that is: very well).

My mouth was even still a little numb when we sat down for dinner.

But, I'm fine now.

Except that I noticed a hole in my tooth. It was a beautiful, perfect hole, so I figured that it was from part of a filling falling out. I called the dentist and made another appointment—for Friday last week—but then woke up so very sick on Friday morning.


I called the dentist right away and they kindly let me reschedule without charging me a cancellation fee (I must have sounded awful) so today was the day for me to go into the dentist again.

Turns out, a little part of my filling had fallen out.

"It's on a tooth we worked on last month, so we'll just pop in there and fix it. You won't even have to get numb."

"Are you sure it's a tooth you worked on before? I think it's the one beside the one you worked on..."

"Nope. Tooth #31. It's right here. We did a [technical terms I can't remember] on tooth #31, which is the tooth you're having a problem with."

"Huh. I thought you worked on the tooth beside that one," I said again.

"Well, my records show that we put that filling in your tooth, which means it's our fault that it fell out, so that's much better for you than if someone else put the filling in your mouth so we can dig around until we get to the bottom of this or...you can just believe me. It's better for you if you just believe me."

"Okay, great," I said.

So they fixed my filling free of charge and sent me home.

But I'm still 99% sure they didn't touch that tooth the last time I was in there. Oh, well.

I didn't even have to get numb this time because it was a "superficial" hole and was already all tidy to fill.

Anyway, Andrew stayed home from work on Friday because I had been planning on going to the dentist, but then I didn't. Still, it was nice to have him home when I was so sick! And then he stayed home to work again today so that I could go to the dentist for real and it was nice to have him around again—he made banana bread in the morning and had dinner ready by 5:00 and helped orchestrate a major clean up of our house (which was in desperate need of a good clean up after a couple of weeks of him/the kids being sick and then me getting sick at the tail end of last week (kleenex everywhere because no one knows where the trashcans are (hint: where they always are, folks!), also books and blankets and socks and sippy cups and stuffed animals...everywhere)).

I'm not sure how much work he got done (though I did see him working plenty, too, and he didn't have commute times to deal with) but it was sure nice to have him around!