Dentist appointment: Wednesday 3PM, catches your eye as you open your diary on Monday morning to check the week ahead. There are other appointments, meetings and various plans but this one sticks out. It is dreaded.
Who doesn’t flinch at the prospect of a trip to the dentist? The mere thought produces near anaphylactic spasms for me. My heart races, my palms become sweaty; heck, I can practically feel the cold, metallic acid taste in my mouth of those feared instruments. With one of the highest suicide rates of any profession, the dentists themselves aren’t exactly having a day at Disneyland. So why is it that dentists are dreaded and the act itself is collectively despised and yet we continue to go (or not go, the real problem) without attempting to change this embedded stigma?
As an on-going obstacle throughout life, the dentist is like homework; you can avoid it all you want, but you know thatsooner or later it’s going to have to get done. There will always be someone or something nagging at you (potentially your own inner conscience, but often the ‘voice of eternal reason’ comes in the form of a parent) to stop procrastinating and bite the bullet. The worst part is that at least you can outgrow homework; the dentist is like that bad Snapchat you hastily send then regret, it always manages to wriggle its way back into your life.
So why is the dentist such a reluctant activity? It could be the cold, sharp atmosphere the moment you walk in the door, the smell of metal and misery while you sit in the waiting room, or perhaps it’s the whizzing and whirring and accompanying discomfort of having numerous, odd metal rods and foul tasting equipment shoved into your mouth at the dentist’s will. But who knows? Maybe it’s the décor.
I like having clean teeth. I like looking after myself where I can, and I like knowing that I’m doing what I can to delay the inevitable dentures I’ll receive for my 70th birthday (along with my back problems and inappropriate dress sense). It is these intangible qualities and this pride of self that keeps meand many others paying extortionate amounts to go through such displeasure. Oh, the ironic benefits of being Susan Boyle.
Dentists rely on this need of each individual for regularpersonal grooming. Without our selfish desire to reduce cavities, limit grizzly smiles and avoid the cataclysmic realities of having a gap filled grin, they would be without jobs; enjoying the utopia that is living without spending their day mumbling numbers and letters mixed into some kind of code that can only be understood by those holding weapons of mouth destruction.
There is nothing more comforting than lying in the dentist’s chair with a light beam shining directly into your eyes, the blood rushing into your head with its proximity closer to the ground than your feet and a couple of tubes shoved in your mouth while hearing “we’ve got an N11 and a 477, I’m going to have to use a J9 for the 5F7.” My stomach lurches and my eyes widen in horror as I arrive at the only logical conclusion: “ALL MY TEETH ARE GOING TO BE TAKEN OUTWITH A HAMMER!”
While always announced in a calm, placid voice as if the dentist is sharing the evening shopping list, it can only mean that the couple of days I forgot to brush my teeth and the abundance of coffee’s during the stressful days at work has now meant I’m getting a face full of fillings and I’M NOT EVEN GOING TO KNOW ABOUT IT BECAUSE THEY ARE TALKING IN CODE!”.
I feel like having a word to Evolution that we spent all those years learning a common language only to revert back to communicating in irrational staccato. What is with creating a barrier between dentist and patient with all this use of unexplained language? Wasn’t this “how are you?”, “how are the children?”, “are the renovations on the pool house finished yet?” we just went through an attempt at joviality? Weren’t we breaking the barriers between patient and worker to create an illusion of warmth and comfort in this unnatural, foreign, mutually detested space?
Hidden beneath the hideous glasses to protect from the lights (though an obvious excuse to mask the shell shocked glare ofpatient fear) my face is blanketed in terror, the only escape from the awful feeling of grating and pressure that the dentist is obviously mercilessly unaware I’m currently tormented to, is imagining the next 12 months without the tiniest mention of ‘dentist’ in any dimension. I can look at my calendar without forebode, I can open and close my mouth when and how I feel like it. I can foresee a yearlong future without uncomfortable, strange metal instruments thrust forcefully at me as my body tenses and contorts in distress against that nightmarish chair.
As the pressure lessens and the tools are removed from my distraught mouth, the chair is returned to a natural angle, the codes stop filling my hearing and the sunglasses are removed so I can see normal vision, the dentist turns to me.
The face is emotionless and empty; “I’m afraid we’ve found a few things that concern me”, it muses. “I’m going to have to ask you to come back for more work next week.”
I actually think I’d quite suit dentures.
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