Monday, June 7, 2010

Stupid Crown!

So today I had to go to the dentist for my six month checkup. I have a dentist phobia. Actually I have a phobia of all doctors. I hate doctors, I hate doctors offices, I hate hospitals, I hate dentists offices, I hate the taste of dentist office toothpaste, I hate the sound of the tooth polisher, I hate it when the hygenist flosses my teeth, I hate all of it. Hate. It.

It's ridiculous because I have a really fantastic dentist. Seriously, I reccomend him to everyone. I hate going to the dentist, but I really do love my dentist and the people that work there. They make it as pleasant as a dentists office visit could possibly be...but still, it's a dentists office.

I'm really good about going to my six month checkups because once I didn't go *coughforsixyearscough* and it wasn't pretty when I went back. So now I go faithfully every six months and I make everyone else in our family go too. The kids love the dentist, it's like a big party when they go there. The dentist even makes balloon animals. Maybe if the dentist made me a balloon animal I would be happier about going...:)

My fear of dentists goes way back to when I was a kid and my dentist had a whole office full of medieval torture devices. Seriously, does anyone else think that going to the dentist used to be WAAAY worse when we were kids or did I just have an exceptionally bad dentist as a kid? The office smelled creepy, the instruments were scary and getting a cavity filled was pure torture. There was no balloon animals, I can tell you that! I had some really bad dental experiences as a kid, which is why I didn't go for a few *coughsixcough* years.

When I finally convinced myself that I needed to be a responsible adult I found myself a dentist and was shocked that it wasn't as bad as I remembered. My dentists office has chairs that massage your back, a flat screen TV over your head, no creepy dentist office smell and the scary instruments are much sleeker and nicer now. Getting my teeth cleaned is never as bad as I make it out in my head to be, but I still dread it like the plague every time I have to go.

So I have this one stupid molar that has been driving me crazy for years. I had a cavity in it as a kid and according to my current dentist the dentist I had as a kid put a ridiculously enormous filling in it. Well then the stupid filling fell out. That happens sometimes after 20 years, I guess. The dentist decided that the filling was so big that it couldn't be fixed so he had to put in a crown. I had a million problems with that crown when they did it. That crown has a long story behind it that I won't bore you with. The short version is that me and that stupid crown have spent many days in the dentist chair. It wasn't really anything that was the dentist's fault, that tooth just insists on being a problem. Finally a year or two ago they fixed it and it's been fine since then.

So today I was at the dentist and it was all going along fine until the dentist poked that tooth with his tiny instrument of torture and I just about jumped out of the chair and hit the ceiling. *sigh*. Apparently there is some decay or something under that crown and the only way they can fix it is to take the crown off and see what's going on under it. STUPID FREAKIN' CROWN!! The rest of my teeth are perfectly fine and every six months I go in and they tell me it all looks good, but that one stupid tooth just won't stop causing problems.

So now I have to go back to the dentist and have that crown taken off so they can poke around and fix whatever is wrong with it and then I have to get a new crown. The thought of that seriously makes me want to cry. It took a really long time to get that crown to cooperate and now we have to take it off and start over and that means two more trips to the dentist. Bleh.

I scheduled the appointment for next month because I'm trying to avoid it for a while. I should just go in and get it over with but I'm a big baby and I don't want to. Instead I'll just let it hang over my head for a month, which makes a lot of sense, I know. Stupid crown!!!

Then I came home and started a new book on North Korea and reminded myself that life could be worse-at least I don't live in North Korea. The book I'm reading is called "Nothing To Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea". It was written by an American reporter who lives in Seoul. She tracked down several North Koreans who managed to escape and are now living in South Korea and compiled a book of their stories of what life is like in North Korea.

I started into a tyrade about North Korea and how much I hate Kim Jong-Il and what's he's putting those people through, but I decided to refrain. That's a whole other topic and I already made you all sit through a novel about my stupid crown. Perhaps tomorrow I'll come up with a topic that doesn't turn into a tyrade about my hatred of anything.

Someone needs to make me a balloon animal.

1 comment:

Pam said...

UGH, I went on hiatis from the dentist for years as well and now I am fearful to not go every six months. I didn't have good experiences as a child at the dentist either. I take my son to a pediatric dentist and they make it fun for him. My memories are similar to yours. Old creepy office, old equipment, PAIN. Hope the crown repair isn't too bad.