Welcome!: Dentist visit

Thursday 16 September 2010

Dentist visit

I have never liked the word D! Dragon! Doctor! Dentist! Double D!

But now I'm gonna talk about my dysfunctional relationship with the d in dentist! As a kid, my brain has already been shutting down and rejecting the idea of going to the dentist. Gosh, I can still remember the fear I would have just by sitting at the waiting room, trying so hard to distract myself by reading magazines, but of course it didn't really help. In my mind I kept thinking I heard some screaming going on inside the room. Maybe my parents would have heard that too, and thus, rescued me from the premises.

And of course! The smell! Why is it that all dentist offices have the same smell?! Do they have the same air freshener? Is there a handbook on that? You can't be certified as a dentist unless you buy this freshener which smells like, pain and fear!

To conclude, it's safe to say that I would be really, really content and pleased with myself if I don't ever need to pay a visit to this fine establishment again. But the time has come and I have to fulfill my destiny! Since a few days ago I've been having toothache, which came on and off. Well, I could still eat and the pain wasn't so intense that prohibited me from doing anything else. For most parts it was still tolerable, so I thought initially it was just a case of sensitive tooth from something I might have eaten.

It wasn't until yesterday that the pain was getting more intense and at night I couldn't sleep because my tooth was throbbing, and there's nothing I could do about it! In the morning I thought I couldn't be able to get up and go to work, but somehow I managed. And yeah, the pain was still on-and-off and during the day, I didn't feel as much pain at work as I was during the night before.

But it's clear that something was wrong, and I wasn't about to wait until the pain got worse, so this morning I started calling dentist offices to make an appointment. Alright, I'm starting to bore you so I'm gonna speed up. Let's just say that it freaking hurts during the examination!

It was bad enough having a throbbing tooth, it was even worse when someone kept poking and scratching it! (And for your information, there! The smell was there again! I told you - same air-freshener.) By the end of it, I almost couldn't speak because the dentist gave me some anesthetic so I couldn't feel the left side of my mouth. Isn't it crazy, how something so small like a tooth (which otherwise you wouldn't pay too attention to, I mean, compared to let's say, your arm! Or your leg) could generate that much pain.

Once my toe nail broke and shite, I almost pissed myself out of pain. And it's just a freaking toe nail! What happens if my fingers got cut off!!! Maybe I'll pass out. *touch wood, touch wood!*

Anyway, yeah. They did an x-ray too, and my wisdom teeth were in the wrong direction. Although, they were all at the very back so the doctor said it's not that urgent to get them removed. Eventually I need to, though. He mentioned that these days all you gotta do is sleep, and they would remove all of them during your sleep, and you would wake up feeling nothing and no pain and the procedure is done! Sign me up, please! That's the best method I've ever heard. They need to apply the same method to..child birth process, I'd say. Ha!

Sorry, getting sidetracked here. So, after the long and painful examination and treatment, the dentist gave me a painkiller to last me 12 hours each, so tonight I expect a painless sleep. But that treatment only already cost me $170!

Please, don't remind me of all the nice things I could have bought with that $170! But I guess, that's the price I have to pay for not having throbbing toothache again!

Dang it. See, I told you I don't like the word D!

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Quotes

There's a hundred million different ways of writing, and it takes you a long time to sort through that stuff. And I think it takes anyone a long time to find a voice.

You must learn to take the good with the bad, the happy with the sad, love what you’ve got and remember what you had. Learn to forgive, but never forget, learn from your mistakes but never regret. People change and things go wrong, but you just have to remember that life goes on.

The day before I’m supposed to be meeting Caroline for a drink, I develop all the textbook symptoms of a crush: nervous stomach, long periods spent daydreaming, an inability to remember what she looks like. I can bring back the dress and the boots, and I can see her bangs, but her face is a blank.

I don't know, I think that if I could just accept the fact that my life is supposed to be difficult. You know, that's what to be expected, then I might not get so pissed-off about it and I'll just be glad when something nice happens.

I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and... I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.

There's a big fucking world out there. It's messy, and it's chaotic, and it's never, never ever the thing you'd expect. It is ok to be scared, but you cannot allow your fears to turn you into an asshole, not when it comes to the people that love you, the people that need you.

Maybe what I'm saying is, is the world might be evolving the way a person evolves. Right? Like, I mean, me for example. Am I getting worse? Am I improving? I don't know. When I was younger, I was healthier, but I was, uh, whacked with insecurity, you know? Now I'm older and my problems are deeper, but I'm more equipped to handle them.

I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who's ever lived: I've loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.

Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.

A woman needs to be held, even, and science has shown this, if its with someone she doesn't care about. Protective hormones are released, and the amount of hormones released depends on the degree to which she is held. The first and best is the complete surround. He wraps you in both arms, whispers how beautiful you are. Second best is the 'arm around.' He is next to you but with one arm around you. Third is he's just next to you on his elbow, but he rests his hand on your stomach and looks at you. Fourth is you snuggling up to him with your head on his chest, while he looks away into space. But when the first best happens, you feel completely, wonderfully like a woman.

So, so what, so fuck off, go home, leave you alone? I'll tell you something Paul, there isn't anything that I've wanted for eighteen years, cause I was a kid eighteen years ago. And if I did still want the same things I'd think I'd gone wrong somewhere, because actually I don't want to marry David Cassidy, I don't want bigger tits, I don't want to do better on my marks. I've stopped worrying about that kind of thing and maybe you should try.

Well maybe there's a big bit of you that's gone missing somewhere, maybe everyone should want something they've always wanted.

Why is it that adults aren't supposed to go mad about anything? You gotta keep a lid on it. And if you don't then people are apparently entitled to say what they like. "You haven't grown up. You're a moron. Your conversation is trivial and boorish. You can't express your emotional needs. You can't relate to your children." And you die, lonely and miserable. But you know, what the hell, every cloud has a silver lining.

I just woke up one morning and didn't feel the same way. Where did it go? It was like there had been a lot of food on a plate in front of us, and we ate it all really quickly, and then there was nothing left. Maybe that's how couples stay together: they're not greedy. They know that what they have in front of them has to last a long time, so they kind of pick at it. I hope it's not like that, though. I hope that when people are happy together, it feels as though someone keeps piling seconds and thirds on their plates.

That is what I have learned: Sex is destructive. Love is nothing to be fooled with. I learned that I was dangerous, not to be trusted. I wondered if my parents were right, with all of their stiff lovelessness. Maybe they knew better. My parents don't dole out love for the deserving or the undeserving. I was learning that love could cost me.

You could say all you liked about reason and logic and common sense and imagination, but when the chips were down, the one skill you needed was the ability to think about absolutely nothing whatsoever.

There is a comfort in never making an effort, but it's a lonely comfort. What keeps you going is the knowledge that you're only playing with only four cards showing. But when you see other people succeeding with their mediocre hands, you have to make a decision. If you turn over that final card you're certain of victory, but it also means you have nothing in reserve.

I’d gone through life believing in the strength and competence of others; never in my own. Now, dazzled, I discovered that my capacities were real. It was like finding a fortune in the lining of an old coat.

Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as mere consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship.