December 02, 2011

Once upon a Dentist visit.

     Me, my teeth, and the braces!!

                                                           


                                                           A space in my gums,
                                                           I reserve only to you.
                                                          Oh, fill this empty space!!






I was singing on this tune before my milk teeth began to fall one by one. The events that followed this simple natural course of nature made me wish I had no teeth in the first place.
(The sequel of the above haiku will appear in a few lines below. And so this was how it all started. Read below...)

The one place where fear overwhelms to create ridiculously weird and scary thoughts inside my head goes to none other than the “dentist shop”. As a kid, I hated going to the dentist due to the following experiences:

Age 7: Usually milk teeth fall off at this age giving space for permanent teeth to grow. But in my case, two permanent front teeth were growing  right behind the milk tooth and as a result, dad took me to the dentist shop to get the two front milk teeth plucked off!! “Ouchy” experience I must say (including the injection that they give to numb off my gums, but who’s going to numb the damn pricky injection!!).But I got my reward in the form of a big tub of ice-cream, which made me forget about  the pain the next instant!!

Age 9: Turns out my permanent teeth were a wee bit wider n larger in size than all my little milk teeth put together. Extra space was needed to get them aligned all straight and normal. To prevent letting me out grow my childhood with a crooky tooth set and later torture me with braces, my mom took me to the dentist lady again and by her prediction, I was growing four extra teeth that would create a problem if not removed before hand. So there I was, strapped to the dentist chair, screaming my head off as if I was about to be fed to some dark monster. There was no way I would let them prick my gums with injections again!  As a result, I was introduced to a local Anaesthetic Injection, right to my wrist and I was put to sleep. I woke up hours later, with cotton balls stuffed into my mouth and the unfortunate “plucked” tooth were laid to rest in a plastic box. I remember burying them in our garden later. Talk about cremating one’s body part at such a young age!!

Age10: I entered the dentist office, shivering from head to toe for more pricks and plucks from the nice dentist lady. Fortunately, this was just a general check up and she advised my mom to bring me back at age 12 because she suspected my lower jaw to be smaller in size to hold two other teeth that were growing their way out. So no plucking today! Two more years of bliss, I thought.

And so this is where I recite the Haiku sequel:







There’s no space left.
Stop growing, it’s not funny.
Sigh, Dentist here I come!








Age 11: For all you candy-obsessed, sweet toothers out there, your mom is always right when she shouts at you saying things like, “ no more candy for u”. Because, the end result of over indulgence of sweets (in my case, Boomer bubble gums!!) will always ends you up on a dentist chair. So here I was, yet again in the dentist shop, getting one of my bacteria affected molar teeth cleaned out and cemented by the dentist lady. Not only I had to suffer the pangs of pain during the procedure, but also had to listen to an earful of advices and scolding’s from both my mom and the dentist.

Age 14: Due to some trips and vacations, my mom forgot all about my appointment with the dentist when I had aged 12. To say the truth, I actually did remember about the scary appointment but I didn’t bother to remind my mom as I was happy to stay away from the dentist chair. But now being back at the dentist shop, the dentist took the dental mirrors out of my mouth with displeasure plastered across her face and told my mom that had I come two years back (as I was supposed to!), she would have removed two more teeth and that would have aligned both my upper and lower jaw with straight teeth. Now all that was left to achieve was for me to wear braces for about a year and a half!!

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”;
This was the moment I felt like screaming at the top of my voice like some drama queen and running out of the dentist office for good measure.  All those years of painful misery I had to endure was to prevent this exact thing from happening, to prevent my poor mouth to be occupied by sharp, steely braces. Sigh!! Skipping one lousy year, and this was my punishment.

I resigned to let the dentist lady work her magic as she happily told me, “Say Aaa, Neha!!”, and I was once again reintroduced to the various dental instruments. Lesson learned: “prevention is better than cure”.

Presently, it’s been over seven years since my last visit to the dentist shop. And I’m still very happy to stay away from that place. Thankfully, my teeth are aligned straight as ever, and so I’m happy to smile freely without any awkward self-consciousness. And that’s the thing I'm really grateful for, given all the trouble I had to undergo during my childhood and early teenage life.

***
P.S: About a month ago, I did go to the dentist shop for a general check-up. As I sat on the dentist chair and stared at the light focusing on my mouth, I was reminded of all these "fond" memories and so thought of sharing it.

Image courtesy: babysittersbungaloo





18 comments:

  1. I don't remember much of my earlier teeth fall bt wisdom teeth were so painfully.

    ReplyDelete
  2. izhiher,You are very lucky that you don't remember any of it. That means you didn't have any problems with teeth alignment. Lucky you!! :)
    And I'm still yet to get my wisdom teeth :P, Only one of them is showing at this stage!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. My front teeth are badly aligned and its kinda always embarrassing to show forth a wide grin. But I guess, I've been bit too scared of braces on the whole so I've grown used to the way I look. haha.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the journey and the photos... I am reminded of my daughter's teeth.. now she has to wear braces and they cost a fortune ~

    Nice to meet you ~

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Enigmatic Soul, I've heard ppl say that slightly twisted canine teeth is a lucky charm for ppl who has it. One of my friend has that charm n she looks really cute when she smiles :). Even she wanted to go for braces but I advised her otherwise, coz she looks fab like how she is.

    @Grace, I showed my mom this post n seeing your comment she was like "see, how much trouble we go for you girls" :) , thanks for the comment and nice to meet you too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. pediatric dentistry?

    ReplyDelete
  7. @zongrik, no, i'm no dentist :P

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nice post -- cute Haiku!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. tho I never had to face serious issue with my pearls, but I had 2 dentist (sisters) at home who wer torture and I was made lap rat -_- every now and then .. Sigh I miss them a lot now,

    ReplyDelete
  10. @meethimirchi, firstly good that you didn't have any brace problems, secondly, sorry to hear that your sisters experimented on u :P but ya fighting with siblings is the best memory of childhood.

    ReplyDelete
  11. How sweet and very well written.


    Melanie

    ReplyDelete
  12. Melanie, Thank you and thanks for following me :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Nice work..love the words, pictures and the lessons in dentistry :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. @Susie, Thanks a lot for your words:)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Lovely post !
    loved the time line style :)
    hmm... you are rocking everyday !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks again Deepak :) .. this was an old post that I felt like sharing..

      Delete
  16. My last visit at the dentist was for wisdom tooth extraction. Something that was supposed to be an extrmly painful exp; but thanks to the doc who won my confidence and could alleviate all the anxiety preop and made things least uncomfortable postop. I've written about it on my blog.

    ReplyDelete

Would Love to hear your Feed back!!!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...