This morning, the almost-five-year-old-referred-to-as-mini-me and I had simultaneous dental appointments. He did quite well. Besides a referral visit in order to have some minor dental surgery a couple o’ years back, this was his first time at the dentist’s office for purposes other than playing X-Box in the waiting room. His visit was just for a cleaning and a check-up. The purpose of my visit: having a cavity filled in a front (yes, front) tooth. Needless to say, he did much better than I did.
It’s been years since I’d had a cavity, perhaps even before Elliot was born. I honestly can’t remember. As a “big, tough man”, I tend to get a bit queezy when it comes to having needles in me, either for novacaine, a flu-shot and especially when it comes to having blood samples taken. Once, while having my cholesterol levels checked, I turned ghost white, drenching my face faster than if I’d dunked my head in a sink, nearly falling out of the chair in the process. The petite Asian nurse inflicting this terror upon me giggled and shook her head saying something along the lines of “the big guys are always the most scared”.
Okay – so I’m a big girl’s blouse when it comes to needles.
I should also let it be know that when I was twenty, I had an emergency appendectomy and had a very rough (and dangerous) time coming around from the anesthesia. Subsequent tests indicated that I have cholinesterase. What the hell’s that, you say? Let’s see what OS X Tiger’s dictionary has to say:
bq. cholinesterase |ˌkōləˈnestəˌrās; -ˌrāz|
noun
Biochemistry
an enzyme, esp. acetylcholinesterase, that hydrolyzes esters of choline.
Basically, it takes a fuck-of-a-long time for me to break down the most common of anesthesia. This explains why all through my childhood and teenage years I’d have a frozen face hours after visiting the dentist for a simple filling. I never questioned it as I didn’t know any better. I’ve since been told it usually wears of fairly quickly.
Okay, back to today’s visit.
Despite having what I consider, especially as of late, to be a fat fuckin’ face, I don’t have a lot of good fleshy bits for getting the needle required to freeze the area around a front tooth. Again, I lost all colour in my face and began to sweat faster than if I’d been sitting in a sauna wearing fleece. However, after a few sips of water and muttering “I don’t know what the hell happened”, I managed to crack a few “Is it safe?” jokes (á la Marathon Man) and regain my composure just as the boy popped his head in to say “hi, dad”.
Lucky me – I get to do it all again in two week’s time.