The Procedure
This feels like an alien abduction. Lying still on my back too scared to move. Bright cold light washing out the details of my captors, leaving only silhouettes. There’s a sound of metallic instruments being organized on a tray close to my head and I hear low muffled instructions to lift my chin and open wide so the procedure can begin.
I’m lying back on an objectively comfortable chair, but internally, an anxious anticipation overrides that awareness completely and a warm wave recedes down my body as I shut my eyes. I know what’s coming and the few seconds that precede it are retrospectively worse than the act itself. My view is dark, but displays residual static of light and red reminding me of switching off an old tube television. Good I’m distracted. No! I realize I’m distracted and my mind snaps back into the moment as I feel his hand lightly against my jaw knowing there’s only split seconds left. The needle pierces my gum and immediately the distorted static is amplified as my eyes instinctively shut tighter responding to the pain registering in a foreign place. Dark with red speckles of light is all I see. I’m aware of his hand advancing against my cheek as the needle plunges deeper. I’m surprised and further discomforted at how deep it’s going. I then realize that I hadn’t breathed for what must have been about twenty seconds and other than my eyes clamped closed, I could have been a corpse lying frozen in a reclined chair. Although my dentist is a very friendly fellow, this is not a comfortable position to be in. At least my inactivity is a good contribution.
I feel his hand retreating with the syringe and my awareness of the world around me slowly zooms out to include the realization that there’s music playing. Florence and the Machine. She holds a long, tortured note sustained with dramatic melodies and I chuckle to myself thinking how fitting it is. I gently exhale out my nose and think ‘ok, at least that’s done…’ and my thought is interrupted with him saying, “ok, that’s the top done, let’s do the bottom” and my brain slips back in time to repeat the process.
My bottom lip feels thick, swollen and tight, good it must be kicking in. With my mouth wide open and the alarming sensation that I need to swallow, my left cheek is pulled open like a curtain to accommodate the hard, cold metallic drill. It starts with low rumbling revolutions and the vibrations feel like chattery gravel in my mouth. The pitch increases with the drill speed and I manage to remind myself to exhale at the relief of feeling no pain.
There’s a quick pause and shuffle of instruments and the drill begins again, but this time it’s a high-pitched shriek that would cause dogs ears to prick back and I feel an electric jolt flash in my jaw. He softly mumbles to his assistant and I immediately know… another shot is needed. Eyes shut, lungs filled and fingers gripping the armrests, I’m pleasantly surprised to feel nothing. My confidence in his skills swell and my heart rate steadies a bit.
After his excavating I feel pressure as he packs the cavity with his thickened paste, his equivalent to concrete. I think of a pothole being repaired and hope he does an infinitely better job. Good I’m distracted again… and at the revelation that thought evaporates like a mist and I’m aware of my tight dry lip being pried open and stretched without its elasticity and I think of a fish with a hook in its mouth. I must look ridiculous.
There’s a low tone beep of a device at my tooth which pulses a wave frequency to aid set his hardening paste. Feels quite futuristic. The sound of the beep transports me back into hospital before surgery and for a moment I’m sixteen again. I’m sucked back into the now as he asks me to close my jaw and then proceeds to polish down the two hardened fillings so they feel like a natural part of me. Just like that he’s done and I slur out something resembling thank you, now fully feeling the effects of the anesthetic across the one side of my face thinking I probably look like Sly Stallone in Rocky yelling “Adriaaan!”.