The Perfect Song Blog

My dentist, Dr. Bob, is a big guy with playful brown hair, mustache and big glasses.  His brown eyes have the wide-eyed innocent look of someone who only thinks good thoughts.

He occasionally makes mistakes, like the time 15 years ago when he executed a root canal on the wrong tooth.  But he immediately corrected the mistake by doing a root canal on the correct tooth.  He’s always been good like that.

I always gave him the benefit of the doubt on that one.  I remember balloons in the room celebrating his 30^th birthday.

He was a kid.

Today I went in to have a molar prepped for a cap.  A prep involves novocaine, a lot of drilling, impressions  and a temporary cap.

We – Linda, his assistant, him and I – made small talk as we worked up to the event.  “Did you look at my x-ray to see what kind of condition the nerves are in?” I asked.

“Yes, but I don’t remember,” he said. “Linda, will you find that x-ray?”  Linda poked around in a box looking for the picture.  She found it and handed it to him.  He held it up to the light.

“No, that’s a front tooth.”  I wiggled with just a hair of uneasiness.

Linda rooted around some more.  “Rummaging through the junk pile of Dennis’ teeth,” I said , making a joke because being serious isn’t always helpful.  They laughed.  She found it.

He looked it over.  “The nerves look fine.  We won’t bother with the root canal,” he announced.  I was relieved.

Linda took her position with the mini vacuum and he hovered over me with the drill, lowering it into my mouth.  Then he stopped.  “Hmm.  It would help if I put a bit in the drill,” he said.

“You’re not inspiring a lot of confidence here,” I said.  They both stopped, laughed and he inserted the diamond bit.

Saying things like this is a tricky thing.  Moments like this want humor but I also knew that psychologically I could mess him up and make him feel insecure.  I could create a situation of insecurity in him in which he’s preoccupied that he might drill straight down through my jaw.

What the hell.  I was numb.

I tried to think of other things as he drilled away, chunks of enamel spraying like shrapnel through my mouth before the vacuum sucked them into oblivion.

When he finished, he picked up the little water sprayer to rinse the tooth.  His aim was off and he sprayed my nose.

“Oops.  I’m again not inspiring confidence,” he said, and I silently agreed.  Good.  He held onto the humor.  He probably wouldn’t drill down through my jaw.

Actually, I sat there feeling really good about both of them (as good as a human can who’s  getting his tooth drilled away).  Neither talked except to make a comment about what was before them, (There it goes. . . .  I knew that part was going to fall off . . . .see that crack?. . .interesting. . . .”)

In a half hour it was done.

He made small talk.

I made smaller talk because only the left half of my mouth worked.  Words sound funny when the right side of the tongue is in a novocaine casket.

The numbing is gone now at 10:15 p.m.  My jaw started to ache with the invasive work.  But thanks to a voluntary invasion of vodka the pain, again, is receding, this time without a needle.

My confidence is back.