Oral & Facial

I sat in the waiting room fiddling with the newspaper. I wasn't reading. I couldn't read. Waiting rooms make me nervous. I looked around at the other waiting people, all nerves.

Then I'm in the special chair and a nurse is putting a bib on and asking me what I do, etc.

Then Doctor is shooting my mouth full of Lidocaine or Novacaine or Something-caine that makes my mouth feel like a rock hanging off the end of my face. And he taps. Tap-tap-tap. More tapping. Stops tapping. Starts again.

"Okay, there's gonna be a lot of pressure," he says. He pushes---hard---upward into my jaw. My head jerks. Samantha the nurse braces my head by placing her hand along my left cheek bone, as Doctor pushes from the right. It's like she's cradling my head. Samantha's very kind like that.

Nothing happens.

"Okay, there's gonna be lots of pressure again," and there is, and again, and again, and I cringe and sweat, but nothing.

Doctor looks at the X-Ray then walks out of the room. He's off somewhere, and I can hear tools clanging together, like when my Dad looks for the right size wrench in his massive red toolbox.

Then he's back. "There's gonna be a lot of noise and a lot of water."

Whirrr!!! and there's little droplets shooting out from my mouth, and I'm cringing and sweating and Samantha asks if I'm okay and of course I say "Mm-hmm."

More pushing. More noise. More water. Suction. My mouth is salty, and I can feel pools collecting under my tongue. Suction. Pressure. Noise.

I can hear the sound of bone cracking against its will, and I'm cringing more than ever. My hands are numb. Samatha checks again. "Mm-hmm."

Then Doctor smirks a bit and says, "There, that's the first root. Only two to go." The root looks like bloodied porcelain and clangs against the metal tray.

Then the tooth is out completely, and Doctor goes to get more supplies.

Samantha tells me about her young son and her former marriage(s). Periodically she gets up and replaces the bloody gauze in my mouth with a fresh white one. She wipes my mouth (blood? spittle?). Samantha is the nicest person I've ever met.

Doctor's back and he's pinching my nose. "I want you to try to blow air through your nose," so I blow and nothing.

"Hmph. Looks like we didn't get any sinus perforation" (which I take to be a good thing, and I later learn that it is). He leaves again.

Samantha has a prescription in her hand, and she looks at me sweetly. "Doctor gave you a really, really strong narcotic."

Awesome.