There are always stories after a visit to a dentist, usually
painful ones but still stories that you feel like sharing after spending time
in “the chair”.
My tryst with dentists started about 3 years back with a
small cavity and it is ongoing today, a relationship I feel will continue till
the very end. To think that one small cavity can bring so much pain and
headache to not only you but your entire family. Just goes to show that you can
never neglect any part of your body at any time, this human body made by God,
needs maintenance and care regularly.
The thing about dentists I have discovered in the past 3
years are that there are 2 types of them roaming this planet – the artists who
can make your teeth shine with a reassuring smile and ones who I like to call
clumsy and distracted, more interested in having conversations with you ignoring
the fact that the patient has about 3 medical instruments inside his/her mouth
and is in danger of swallowing the gravel/dust from the teeth.
My first visit to the dentist and in “the chair” was to an
old family friend who my grandparents swore by. In fact, my grandfather would
specially travel from Kolkata to Ahmedabad (a trip he hates) just to get his
teeth checked by this dentist. With such strong references, I was pretty
confident when I went to enquire about the pain in my teeth. The dentist told
me I had a cavity, drilled and filled it, and then sent me on my merry way
while charging me fees for a NRI (Oh beta! You live in Australia now, how wonderful).
Well I ditched that dentist, (no, not because of the NRI
fees, oh okay, maybe a bit because of them) when even after 3 visits (I was a
bit slow back then and a masochist) and after much drilling and poking, I
realized that the dentist who works for my grandparents may not necessarily
work for me also.
As the saying goes, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before
you find your prince. Well, luckily for me I have had only 2 bad experiences
with dentists before finding 2 perfect ones – one in India and one in
Australia, 2 countries where I reside. So my teeth look all set for the future.
On a side note, what do you do with your tongue when you are
in the dentist’s chair? I have found that when I am in “the chair”, my normally
sedate tongue comes alive and goes crazy. It wants to move around and be
friends with the drill. No matter how much my brain warns it to stay away in a
corner, as soon as the drill goes off, it’s like, why hello Mr. Drill.
So now tell me, been in “the chair” lately?
