Without doubt, my one accomplishment yesterday (other than completing the first draft of the conclusion to ‘thesis’, a presence threatening to become my lifetime companion), was realising the full extent of yet another childhood trauma. As anyone who attended Arataki primary school in the 1970s can attest, all the primmers lived in morbid fear and fascination of a particular office on school grounds.
That one office must have brought more pain and misery to children at that place than any other four walls in creation. We all lived in constant dread of that note being delivered to the teacher, the one that called you out of class and forced that long nervous walk across to the little building, the anxious wait in the lobby on those little chairs they only have in primary schools, and the inevitable look of disappointment on the adults face as you reply “no…” to “have you been brushing?”
You thought I was talking about the Headmaster? No. Ours was a jovial old coot with a friendly, pipe-smoking habit who eventually went off to become Mayor of Tauranga. I can’t remember him ever giving me the cane, although I’m assured by my brother that it did happen. Bastard.
Anyhow. The ‘murder house’ was a place of untold dread. For the life of me I can’t remember what the dental nurse looked like, all I can imagine is some old fishwife in a smock, but the chair she used to make us climb up into is indelibly burned into my mind like a scene from a Manson video. Either one. Take your pick.
Even worse was the “drill”. I use the term loosely because to this day I regale dentists with stories of the foot-pedal contraption, a monstrosity that was all cords and little spinning wheels. She might just as well have used a hammer and chisel. The nurse would lay into our newly grown ‘adult’ teeth and demolish them with the voracity of a seven year old getting into a double-flake Mister Whippy.
I insist that the gasps drawn from new dentists these days are the result of surprise at finding the shoddy and numerous fillings that glisten and cluster ominously at the back of my mouth, like an El Dorado of silver amalgam. And not just halitosis.
When her leg got tired the drill would slow, and the pain would arc into crescendos of pain, manifesting itself as white clenched knuckles and involuntary spasms down through the limbs.
At intermediate they introduced me to new forms of agony, such as the needle to the roof of the mouth, although all things being considered, ‘anaesthetic’ was a new and fascinating development in dentistry. A new development I was all too happy to cling to, when all the botched fillings miss whoever the hell she was gave me were replaced with some new form of mercury-leaching technology.
Ah, Happy times.
One small mercy was being spared any trip to the orthodontist. I was scared enough of mentholated spirits without having to make regular trips to have little rubber bands attached to the oral equivalent of medieval torture devices. It would have been like a constant replaying of that Steve Martin scene in the Little Shop of Horrors, but less masochism and more sadism. Who says that poverty is all bad? Pity about the train wreck in my mouth, but hey, small mercies, small mercies.
After college I stayed away from dental offices for as many years as I could, ten to be exact. It wasn’t the bovver boys of the teeth world, my wisdom teeth, really started to cause an oral ruckus that I ventured into the white walls of a dentist reception again.
Having consulted with a couple of friends, after staying out of the game for too long you need a little guidance to ensure you’re heading in the right direction, I found that a particular dentist in downtown Auckland offered a student discount, so I plucked up my courage and headed over there on the Link Bus.
Oh, I so wish I could remember this guys name, if not only to defame him. And defame him viciously.
I spoke to the receptionist, and she assured me that I’d be able to pay the amount owing in instalments, all I had to do was get a check-up, and then make appointments for fillings, repair etc. I booked myself in, and the years of technological advance I’d missed out on were immediately apparent. This guy had a nifty oral camera that showed exactly how crappy my gnashers really were. It is simply amazing how cavities can look really ugly when they’re blown up to TV size and in full colour. Dentists, if you’re reading this, get one of these things. Best sales technique EVER.
So, the day for the first appointment rolls around and I dutifully squash the fear to the back of my mind, along with turning up to class with no clothes on and walking in on my grandparents making whoopee, and place my trusting self in the chair I’d been afraid of all these years.
And then it started.
The first thing that happened was me opening my all-too-foolish mouth and asking if the cavity behind my buck teeth could be the one fixed first (blame vanity for that one). The dentist says, “No”. I say, but, it’s the one I want fixed the most. I’ve never been able to whistle between my teeth and have no inclination to do so. He however insists that another filling will be fixed first, because he is the dentist and I am the income… I mean client.
Now things start to get out of hand. I say, hold on, since I’m not sure when I’ll be able to finish paying off the first filling, maybe we can get the cosmetic one done first, and then we can worry about the others. He says, “what do you mean paying it off? There’s no instalment plan around here”. I reply, but your receptionist said I could pay off the filling then come back. He is starting to get angry at this point, and insists that all work done is paid for on the spot.
I should reiterate that while this is occurring I’m lying prone in the chair, with that nifty little paper towel thing they put on you as the only barrier between me and the looming face of an increasingly apoplexic dentist. There’s only one thing for it.
I launch myself out of the dentist chair and we have a stand up shouting match, including me pointing my finger angrily and dramatically ripping the little paper towel thingy off, chucking it on the floor and stamping on it.
Now, I’m not a violent man. Me and dentist man didn’t actually end up having a fist fight. For one thing, he has numerous sharp and/or pointy objects at his disposal while I merely had a wounded pride and shonky nerves. But it was once the misunderstanding was sorted out (I hadn’t explained my expectations to the receptionist), and our respective testosterone swept back under the id, I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
I got back in the chair.
The needle has never, ever been more painful, or more forcefully driven under my teeth or into my pallet. That bastard.
The only consolation was explaining to the person making the follow-up call six months later that I’d received the worst treatment ever at the hands of a medical practitioner, and thought of going to the ombudsmen with a formal complaint. Heh heh.
Finally, finally, when I got here to Melbourne I found that you can get good and cheap dental treatment through the university. In the end I got about ten fillings done and four wisdom teeth taken out for less than five hundred bucks, a miracle in anyone’s books.
In fact, a run in with the crunchy bit in a lamb chop sent me to my great and careful dentist yesterday afternoon, with him explaining at length in dentistese that my teeth are fine, I just bruised a tooth (hence the pain. I’ve never heard of bruising, but hey, he’s ‘da man’). Otherwise I just need to brush and floss more carefully to avoid future work.
No lollies or balloons to distract you like the old days, but current technology is amazing, fancy white non-mercury fillings and weird guns that dry them in an instant, or these rubber things called ‘dams’ that stop too much liquid from getting out of your mouth and onto the nurse, and a dentist who appears to have actually studied the science of his trade. Amazing.
Fear? Gone. Let’s hear it for moving on from the Murder House.