My dentist, like a young boy unable to control his excitement, blurted out, "Oh wait! I want to show you this."We are the same age and he is a very good looking man, almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
As he fumbled to adjust the chair, pushing aside the tray of tools, and navigating the white cords that hung about like vines he produced a hand mirror; I sighed. It was deep and heavy with the knowledge that I was about to disappoint him something I didn't want to do.
He handed me the mirror. I barely held it. I tilted my head.
"They're teeth," I said flatly handing back the mirror.
I thought I heard him huff, sad, dejected. He muttered something jokingly to the room.
A minute or so later while the dental assistant occupied me he slipped out into the waiting room to find BC for a better payoff to all his hard work. He told BC what I had said.
"That sounds about right," BC answered, "Even today she isn't happy to be here."
Back in the room with me, my dentist told me he understood my reaction. Assured himself, to me, that I wasn't the only patient too overwhelmed by the moment to be happy. I believed him. I knew it was true- it had to be.
He fought me a full half hour to get the bite right. "How's that?" and I would answer with a shrug or a pathetically dull "great". He would try the bite plate over and over then ask again, "How's that, closer?"
Shrug, "I don't know. Don't you know?"
I wasn't trying to be difficult I honestly don't know what my regular bite should feel like. In total, I have 9 new crowns in my mouth. It feels... crowded. It feels cold. It feels like enough porcelain to redo a bathroom.
"Misty, we are minutes away from being done," his tone begged.
"I am sure I am happy...." I was digging deep. Am I happy? This is over. It's all done. Why am I not happy?
He continued explaining that he understood, that it was normal. But you could he was disappointed.
It didn't feel normal to be the only one it truly affected and yet to be the single person in the office not be touched by it. Everyone was excited except me.
"We are so close, " he whispered with his head down, hands in my mouth.
That was when I thought about the snow. About running. The coldness against my face. Wet boots. Head, hot and sweaty beneath a hat. It won't hurt anymore when I run in the snow... that's right. It won't hurt. And I almost started crying.
But I didn't want to give that to him either. That had been our first encounter. I cried so much I couldn't talk.
Of all the appointments to restore my teeth, this one was the worst and it wasn't supposed to be.
The sedation medicines were making me too sick to use again so I had to go in unsedated.
All he was doing was setting 4 new crowns, "polishing" and filling a chip.
The gas didn't help to calm me. I could feel it touching the jagged edges. Pulling at the corners like melting tar but my anxiety was far stronger. I felt sick to my stomach when I tried to relax into it.
Nothing he did was painful. Mostly it was pressure and pinching. A pressure that fed straight into the fear of pain. The fear of not being in control of your own body.
The office was freezing but quickly I sweat through my clothes. My dentist would throw his chin towards my clasped hands directing his assistant to touch them. She would place her soft hands over mine but it did nothing to lessen my grip.
Every once in a while, my dentist himself would place his gloved hands over them. My dentist told me at the end he literally thought I was going to break at least one of my fingers.
In theory, he should have been able to do the 5-minute chip repair without numbing me. Halfway I stopped him and told him he was going to have to give me a shot. I know he didn't want to. Flecks of frustration flashed across his face; he didn't want to have to hurt me and the shot he knew would do that. He knew if I could trust him that I wouldn't get hurt- but even all these months later I couldn't give that to him.
I have never lied to you.
We are so close.
Whatever you need.
Misty, we are almost done, all the bad stuff is over.
The night before my first appointment way back in March, I stood in the shower telling myself, "You are the patient, the work is his, you are the patient, there is nothing you have to do."
Nothing but trust.
This man, my dentist, he will never know why it was so hard for me to trust him. Why it was, and is, so hard for me to give up power and control even for my own best interest. How deep the forces are that he went up against- and won.
Without BC it never would have happened. I would have gone on living in pain, clouded by embarrassment. I borrowed BC's trust in the process to get through. Together we found a dentist that an ego big enough to win a blind fight with me.
Once he dropped something on me and laughed, "Yeah, you don't make me nervous at all."
Mostly when he works he sings.
Sometimes he explains in long detail what he did like a teacher teaching a class.
I can read the urgency in his voice even when he tries to cover it.
When it was all over I stood in the waiting room shaking. Exhausted. Not sure what or how to feel. He had finally gotten me numb. The shot he had injected into my top jaw had actually worked.
I thought about the burn unit about drug addicts. The words of Dr. Morris to a young burn patient just brought in, "Our medicine doesn't work so well if you are already using your own." The whole room knew the kid was high but he won't admit it- until they asked me to give it a try.
I leaned in low eclipsing his line of sight to the rest of the room and got him to answer me truthfully because he felt like it was just he and I. My truth is I have spent so long numbing myself it is hard for anyone else to help me.
Here I am with that behind me. And yet everyone but me is standing at the end of this journey. I am somehow at the beginning a little less sure what to do now. This giant shadow is gone and the light is blinding. I have tried to see this whole process as healing and recovery but that is what now seems to be.
I don't know what to call the past 9 months.
I wasn't home but a couple of hours when I heard Brandon's voice downstairs as he let himself in. I hadn't seen him in months, perhaps even a year. I put down the book I was trying to disappear into to listen to his dog move across the floor with mine.
I listened to BC and him chatting as if time was wrinkled in a white sheet of paper.
I waited for BC to call me before slowly walking down the stairs to rejoin my life like nothing had ever happened.
I don't believe in god but if I did when I become lost and unsure which way to go he would send me a sign. A sign he knows I wouldn't ignore.
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