I hope my dentist reads this one day.
My dentist and all her crew have changed my life. Not in the way you may think but in a very deep visceral way. Let me explain.
I was raised in a very small community up north. We lived on a government farm halfway between Smithers and Telkwa. My early childhood was a miracle of wonderfulness. Keep in mind this was back in the fifties and you had to ford creeks to get up there. There was no tv, no radio other than CBC, no magazines (we were pretty poor), no newpapers etc... We lived a pretty isolated bubbled life, but a truly good one. We belonged to a strange cult like religion that cocooned us even more.
Our tiny town did not have a full time doctor or even a part time dentist. We had a hospital run by nuns and very competent nurses with visiting doctors from Prince George. Life seemed a lot simpler then. If you got aches and pains and sickness, you waited. Either it got better ....... or not! You saw things like goiters...and for those of you that don't know about those, they are HUGE swollen round like baseballs growths on the neck. And you saw giant round grapefruit size growths on stomaches under shirts, later to be told those were hernias. You saw crossed eyes, handicapped people due to polio, pock marked skin from measles and chicken pox, clubbed feet, and on and on. Things like that didn't get fixed in those days.
Dentists, (I still cringe a little at the word) were in Prince George. PG was a long long way to go in those days to get a tooth fixed. Once in a while a fly by night dentist would come to town and set up in the local school or community centre. These dentists were not nomadic for "I want to go north and experience the great white outdooors" reasons. No, they were nomadic because they sucked so bad communities would put the boots to them. I was always taken to them because I had terrible teeth. I shall recount only one of the horror tales. But make no mistake, I have quite a few of these awful stories.
The one that stands out the most to me was when I was seven years old. A dentist had set up in the old elementary school in Telkwa. After school my mom took me there and at the doctor's insistance, left me with him. He had told her that kids behaved better when there were no parents present. This being an era of innocence, she gladly dropped me off and left. He was very large and had huge glasses. I climbed up into the chair and opened my mouth. He took a cursory glance and instantly decided I should have two of my teeth pulled. This wasn't the first teeth I had pulled by a dentist. Not really understanding the whole proceedure and exactly what was happening, I trustingly, with some trepidition, kept my mouth open. He gruffly told me that it was going to feel like a bee sting (which scared the pants off me) then grabbed some pliers and proceeded to yank my two teeth out, without freezing. The pain was blinding. The fear neuropath in my brain, which became my default reaction in later years to dentists, became deeply entrenched forever. There were many more episodes to come, but that is the one that started it all.
I bless the day I found Andrea and her team. They offer sedation dentistry. I accepted that offer with alacrity and no sense of weenie shame at all. To date I can't count the number of trips to that dentist and I love going. They make you feel so comfortable and at home. And Andrea and her awesome husband have worked miracles in my mouth. I now have ridiculously awesome teeth and i didn't feel a thing. Now when I have an appointment I look forward to it. Either I get to visit with friends whilst having a checkup or her lovely husband is going to give me that happy juice that puts me out. (I love being put out. I think I could be a drug addict. I will have to be careful!!!) So all in all, a trip to the dentist now isn't that gut wrenching fear inducing event it once was but a happy occasion to look forward to. I have, with help from the best dentists ever, burnt a new neuropath!
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