Dentist

I went to the dentist today for the first time in *ahem* years. It was actually a great experience. I had a horrible time when I was a kid. See some of my adult teeth didn’t knock out my baby teeth. So the dentist I went to as a child, in all his wisdom, set about extracting each of these little teeth one at a time. So I repeatedly went to the dentist, each time to have yet another tooth pulled. Suffice to say, I never finished this ordeal and have run from dentist the rest of my happy little life.

Well, now I’m a big girl. I’ve given birth twice. Not to mention this lingering fear of what might be wrong with my teeth that I know nothing about as I bush and floss away. So I finally decided I better go get my mouth checked out. I got my x-rays done and I sat nervously wondering how many cavities there were and if any other teeth (besides those baby teeth) would need to be taken.

In walks the dentist. He looks at the films and then inspects each tooth. There are NO cavities. I was in shock. He agreed that those three baby teeth will need to come out. He also recommended orthodontics to line everything up, since they are all a mess crammed in there on the bottom. I asked about my one lonely wisdom tooth. I figured if we were talking braces, it would probably come up at some point. He said we should probably have them all taken out. I asked if it looked like they wouldn’t come in that we skip them and just do the one. He ordered an extra x-ray and after it came back he agreed the two that are below aren’t likely to come in and I don’t even have one on the top right. Odd, huh?

So I’ll have to see an oral surgeon, who will let me snooze my way through the operation. That sounds much better than the crying I remember doing when I was eight!

So then I went off to have my teeth cleaned. The gal was great. She said I take great care of my teeth and that she’d never even know that it had been long since I’d had them cleaned. She seemed concerned that I was uncomfortable, but it was a nice quiet time. No children asking questions, screaming for my attention, or knocking anything over. It was like I would imagine a trip to the spa.

I think I’ll have to do this more often.