Dental doings

Today I had to go to my dentist for a cleaning and checkup. I am semi-good, in that I do go regularly to my dentist. But I am not a good flosser. And my family has bad teeth. (My brother, who is 8 years younger and has always had regular dental care, has only one molar on the left side of his mouth.) My mouth has a gazillion crowns. Once a little dental receptionist was looking at my charts and said to me, "Wow. When you die, can I have your teeth?" Um, no.

So I went to my nice dentist. And he IS nice, a very pleasant guy with a sense of humor. He's an excellent dentist, always makes Hotlanta's Best Of Medical list. Bonus - he's not as expensive as most in Hotlanta.

The folks in the dentist's office like me. I'm cheerful and funny with them, and I make them laugh. One of my very best friends works there. Poor Mrs. V was sitting in reception today with dark sunglasses on, as she was suffering from a migraine. Like most of us, Mrs. V is not made of money, so she comes to work no matter how she feels. I tried not to make her laugh today. I knew her head would hurt too much.

And I went back and sat in The Chair and talked to the dental hygienist, who's sweet. She started checking my gums for periodontitis, jamming the little stick into my gums. Ugh. I hate this. (Bad teeth, remember?) She wasn't saying the numbers aloud, just typing them into the computer. "Tell me the numbers!" I said. So she did. "2, 1, 2 - 2, 3, 3." (These are the depth she can poke into my gums. 0 is perfect - 6 is BAD.) "3, 2, 2 - 2, 2, 4." And then I was bad. Every time she took her hands out of my mouth, I started mimicking her, but with random numbers. "3, 8, 52 - 1, 14, 237." She got tickled.

In the end, she said my gums were MUCH better than the last time they were checked. Whew.

Then I told her I was stressed and started telling funny stress things. Like, when I'm stressed, I have weird dreams. I don't know if you have vivid dreams - but boy howdy, I can have some strange ones. In full color. And (as you can tell), I remember lots about them. (Can you tell I kinda had diarrhea of the mouth there?)

The latest stress dream was related to shaving my legs. Why this is a stressor, I don't know, but you can't control what you dream. The dream was somehow triggered by a commercial we see here in the States for a cell phone company. In the commercial, the girl has armpit hair that must be 2 feet long, waving in the wind in her boyfriend’s face while they’re on a tandem bicycle, and she says “Is this wrong?”

In my dream, I don't have armpit hair. I have hairy ankles. I feel something on my ankles and look down to find that the hair on my feet and ankles is dragging on the ground, kinda like Shire horses. Long enough to trip on. Why? That’s all I can remember of the dream, just my hairy ankles. Is that so wrong?

I told the hygienist about the hairy ankles dream, and she roared. Then she got to work on my mouth. I had to stop and ask her about the hidden trophy case that I know all dental hygienists secretly have, the one with pieces of their clients’ gums in it. I told her not to add to the gum trophy case today, at least not MY gums. And then she had her hands in my mouth and I had to shut up. I’m sure she was grateful for the silence.

Finally my dentist came in and checked things out. No good for me. He said that I need at least 1 and probably 3 crowns replaced along with 2 fillings. I said, "I guess you're planning on going to Europe this summer?" He said, "Well I had planned to go to Spain, but there was the volcano.." "You miss my point. You're going to Europe courtesy of me?" He laughed.  I made my next appointment.

An odd aside – I can make the sound of the dentist’s drill with my mouth at will. zzzzzZZZZzzzz It scares some people because it’s so realistic.

My dentist will be making the drilling sound – with the drill – on me in two weeks.