My Trip to the Dentist

Last week I went to the dentist to take care of a problem that had been bothering me for several weeks. Since it was my first visit to this dentist I had to go through the x-rays and complete dental exam where they probe around all of your teeth with that pointy little torture device. It turns out I needed a lot more work on my teeth than just the one problem I was having. Right now my bank account won’t allow such “luxuries” so I asked the dentist to fix the one tooth that was bothering me the most.

Before she would begin my treatment she took my blood pressure and it was a little high. I rarely have high blood pressure, so she said let’s wait a little while and take it again and see if it comes down. For some reason she didn’t feel it was a good idea to give me anesthetic with high blood pressure. So I sat there connected to a blood pressure monitor for at least half an hour. My blood pressure came down so she began to fix my tooth.

Confession: I do not like going to the dentist! However, this was a fairly decent experience once I got over the price shock. The nice part for me was that my dentist, a very nice woman, treated me while I sat in my wheelchair. That is so much better for me since I find it extremely uncomfortable to be in the dental chair which was not designed for someone like me.

Finally the whole ordeal was over and Norm was anxiously waiting for me in the front office. We got there at 11 a.m. and it was 2:30 p.m. before we left. We paid the bill, which was way more than I expected, and then decided to go somewhere for lunch. Both of us were famished but only one of us could eat. My lips and tongue were still quite numb from the Novocain so I wasn’t going to risk biting my tongue off while trying to devour a hamburger. Norm suggested we go to Red Robin since he overheard someone in the waiting room say that they had good chocolate shakes. A chocolate shake would be something I could eat safely, so off we went.

While perusing the menu I noticed they had smoothies so I ordered a Hawaiian smoothie which had fresh strawberries and bananas. It was quite tasty but didn’t give me as much satisfaction as a hamburger would have. I should have had something like muscle milk. Oh well, maybe next time since it seems that I will be going to the dentist a lot more in the future. Unfortunately it will just have to wait a long while since I don’t have that kind of money in the bank.