Major setback today in conquering my lifelong fear of the dentist. My first ever root canal procedure, done just five days ago,...didn't quite take...leaving me in quite a lot of pain this morning. I took some pain medicine at 7:00 am which did nothing. It was so bad, I actually called the surgeon of my own free will to ask him to do something about it. He agreed that I should come in this afternoon. He seemed particularly glad to see me...
After some dentist office small talk, he determined that there must have been some nerve endings down there that he had missed which were the culprit. I was quickly shipped off into the surgery room where I figured I would once again do the sedation dentistry thing. To my great surprise, no sedation was forthcoming and before I knew what was happening, the good dentist was administering ginormous doses of Novocain into my left jaw with what looked like a horse-sized syringe.
This time there was no music, only the bone chilling noise of sharp metal instruments doing their grizzly work. Several times I jumped noticeably at the uncomfortable pains shooting this way and that around the inside of my mouth. Whenever I did, the surgeon would ask, "So sorry...are you alright?" To which I would reply..."shwerlzhhggtz, mummphthrurth..." Thus reassured, he would offer the encouraging phrase..."almost done now..." which translated means...just getting started, actually.
The only bright spot was the fact that this new round of torture was covered under my $1470 bill from session one.
Hopefully all is well now and nothing bad will happen between now and my last session on October 17th. Although, I felt compelled to tell everyone in the office the reason for my extreme discomfort, and to insist that the next time I come for a visit I would much prefer sedation dentistry...or absent that, any newer, bolder plan to kill the pain and unpleasantness of the procedure...
He has promised me that he will look into it.
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