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Illustration by Drew Shannon
I’m lying on my back in the dentist’s chair feeling sorry for myself. It is one of the few places I am forced to give up all control as the dentist tries to bring order where there is only chaos.
The dentist’s office, all bright lights and high-tech instruments and everyone dressed like off-duty astronauts, make me feel like I have entered a space capsule, preparing for lift-off. The assistant led me to the blastoff chair and showed me how I could go whale-watching in Antarctica by watching the big screen on the ceiling.
The layout of my teeth will not be of great interest to the general reader. Still, I need to explain a few features. The first thing of note is half a tooth sticking up from the bottom, like a bombed-out apartment block in the debris of my mouth. My front teeth protrude as a result of nature blessing me with more than there was space for, compounded by the fact that there was no orthodontist where I grew up in rural Ireland. My pride and joy is the extra tooth toward the back on the top. I say “extra” because it stands out on its own in a spare row like a shark’s tooth.
“What fillings do you plan today?” I ask Edward, the dentist.
“Oh, Bill, toss a coin, there are several in need across the bottom and the top,” he says.
“I think, you need to consider dentures soon because any repairs I do will not last.”
He does not lecture but couches his information more in sorrow than in anger. He knows that I know I have neglected my dental care. That is an understatement. He mentions that lack of fluoride in the water where I grew up could be a factor, presumably so I’ll feel it wasn’t all my fault. But I know. I developed an addiction to chocolate-covered almonds a few years ago and didn’t realize the sugar could destroy teeth in less than a year.
I hear the word “dentures” with horror.
“I’ll do three fillings across the bottom and I can get round to some on the top next time,” Edward says. He has a wry sense of humour.
The assistant had a big role to play in this charade. Until recently, several friendly assistants worked with Edward. However, for some time now he has had a very unfriendly woman, who given the chance, lectures me like I am a child; one of her specialities is speaking to me when I have my mouth open, the drill is on, and I can’t hear her, never mind respond. “Open your mouth more,” she says, “keep your tongue down,” is a command rather than a request.
As the dentist freezes my gums, I tense up even though I know there will be no pain. This is because years ago there was often excruciating pain in dentistry when the drill hit a nerve, which frequently it did. It was like Russian roulette – the agony lay in never knowing when the pain would strike. The latest tools and anesthesia remove the sensation of pain along with one’s sense of reality.
When the drilling begins, I am completely captive, as if I were in a therapist’s chair, with no way to escape other than floating out of my immediate situation into a contemplative view of my general welfare. Apart from the last of my teeth, scattered about at random and rapidly decaying away, I have some other ailments that have crept up on me. My knees are stiff when I stand up, my back acts up when I stand for any length of time, and my balance has deteriorated, too. The list goes on. My short-term memory is deteriorating. I mention this litany of impediments, not to elicit sympathy but simply to acknowledge the bounties of aging and to marvel at how many I can recall at any one time while captive in the dentist’s chair.
My pleasant reverie is interrupted when the assistant rudely sticks an instrument in my mouth to evacuate debris. She moves it around like an out-of-control vacuum but I have learned from previous sessions that I can, with low-grade guerilla tactics, truncate this exercise by sticking my tongue into the end of her wand; it abruptly stops, and she has to withdraw it prematurely. It is hard to be sure of her expression when so much of her face is covered with a mask. I stare into her eyes at close quarters but, getting no loving response, I return to the whales circulating overhead.
After the fillings were completed, the dentist pronounced the death sentence on the shark’s tooth. A few weeks later an oral surgeon visited the clinic to do the deed. I wanted to take it home, and was holding it in my hand, when the crabby assistant swept it away and into the bin, spitting out something about “risk of infection.”
Leaving the office, I can start to take control of my day again. I make a mental note to ask for the birds of the Amazon video instead of the whales on my next visit.
Bill Jermyn lives in Toronto.