Photo by @KumaKum on Unsplash
Hear me out on this 3 part series of fear and loathing in the dental chair. Today I’ll give you what I learned straight off:
Speak up and take no sh** from people who don’t have your best interest at heart; Take care of and love yourself like no one else can; If you make the same mistake twice (or more), move on and respect yourself. Vow not to make it again; Be present, especially when you’re scared; This is your life and you get to decide how it goes. You get to change it whenever you want. Cool, huh?
Here’s how I failed at this.
I must have been 16. The dentist said I needed to have my 4 wisdom teeth extracted. I hated this dentist. He was a pompous ass, but he was a friend of my parents and I was stuck. I didn’t want him to look at my teeth much less remove them. What would you have done?
Mistake #1: yeah, I went ahead with it.
So there I was in the chair, he numbed me up and began working. It began to really hurt but he wasn’t paying any attention to my whimpering.
Mistake #2: I didn’t call it off right there or start screaming ’cause I was a good girl and didn’t want to make a fuss.
But screaming, Yes. So effective. He was starting to sweat and I heard him tell his assistant to cancel his next 3 appointments.
Mistake #3: I didn’t run for the hills ’cause he was an adult and knew what he was doing, right?
4 HOURS LATER, swearing and mumbling he’s removed all of the shards of my ONE wisdom tooth and scolded me for having “brittle teeth.”
Mistake #4: I didn’t bite his flipping hand off. I’ve become meaner about hatefulness as I’ve gotten older.
He turned me over, bruised and battered to my nearly hysterical, ashen-faced Mom with a prescription for a pain killer and home we went. There I lay on the couch dozing in and out when I jerked awake in panic. I couldn’t breathe! My Mom looked at me gasping, grunting and clawing my throat and shrieked for my Dad. He took one look at me and proceeded to run a tube down my throat (ouch) and I think he gave me Benadryl. (Just a note to let you know Dad was a physician and was forever saving us kids from an early death.)
Mistake #5: What was that pain medication? Was I allergic to it? Or was it the bruising from the wretched tooth removal? Still don’t know and there are no more parents or demonic dentist to ask.
I don’t remember what happened the rest of the day but I do know that the next day I had a sore throat and my face was an interesting sunset of blue, black, yellow, green and orange-y red. The dentist from hell paid me a home visit. He seemed to think I should be grateful he came over on his own time to see how I was.
Mistake #6: I should have asked my parents to sue his ass or at least let me find another dentist. But no, he remained my family dentist until I left home. Why didn’t I speak up?
I eventually recovered and the remaining 3 wisdom teeth were removed by an oral surgeon. More on that in Part 3 of this series. It’s a much funnier event which I’m sure you’re looking forward to after all this trauma.
I’m a person who had to learn the hard way how to take care of myself and speak up but I’ve changed my evil ways. What’s your take on this? Do you have to learn the hard way before you change? Leave me a comment and let me know!
I work with people to help them learn to speak up and take care of themselves. It’s tough, I know if you’re shy to speak your mind. But it’s a learned skill and part of it is practice. Life coaching helps address getting from where you are to where you want to be. Doesn’t that sound nice? If you click this purple button Click this button! you can schedule a FREE Groundwork session with me and check it out. Or you can click here to see what else I offer. What else do you do?
