Dental Drama (Trauma?!!)

Let me begin with by saying, that when I plan to fail, I really don’t fail to plan. Having led a directionless life in the double decade and odd period for which I had known Mother Earth, it so appeared to me that it was high time I took charge of things. I gave my resolve a jump-start by planning a lot many things for the 4 days long holiday that I was to spend at home. High on the itinerary was an appointment with the dentist, which had been long pending. It was a follow-up visit for the treatment necessitated by an accident coupla months back. (If anyone cares to know about the mishap, do rummage through my earlier posts, to find an account filled with all the more-than-necessary-for-the-world-to-exist details. (Frankly speaking, I myself don’t have the patience to do so... (But that’s a secret between you and me ... (mums the word! (and yes, I am back to writing within brackets))))).
Now, if you are out of the brackets finally, let me come to the point. This follow up visit turned out to be blessed with immense procreation of its own kind. The follow up visit was followed by a follow-up for the follow-up visit, and that was succeeded by its own follow-up. The crux of the issue is, that I had complained of some faint pain in one of my affected teeth, (that was just to sound serious, because I really didn’t have any big complaints to report.) which made the dentist take an X-ray and discover a crack in some bone, which had stubbornly refused to heal. This induced the proliferation follow-ups, each one being more ridiculous than the previous, the nurse forgetting to replenish the stock of some pain-alleviating drug during one of those, and making things difficult for the rest of humanity. My mother, who would be waiting outside, would give a perpetually woeful look each time, once going to the extent of forcing the Doc explain the rationale behind all the excavation work going on inside my oral cavity. It is a very funny thing, finding yourself in a hapless condition, jaw wide open, all sorts of heinous instruments flashing their malicious metallic grin, the cacophony of the drill, and you left to salivate like a dog, with a vacuum pump sucking out the fluid and leaving u, not high but dry. The pain and the ignominy reach their pinnacle, only when the Doc says: “That’s it, we just have 10 more minutes to go, its going to hurt just a little bit”.. In this respect, the Dentist resembles God, timing the hardest blow perfectly when our spirits are soaring sky high...
I still have one more follow-up to go, but that has been safely pushed into the middle of February. But till then, whether or not I like it, mush is going to be my mantra. Perhaps, not for the heart, but unavoidably for the mouth.
Something out of my 10th Standard English book just floated into my head – a poem by
Ogden Nash. I have pasted it below. In case, you liked my post so far, you might like the poem as well, for our tastes may concur. Even if you didn’t, read it anyway, for all of us have teeth, and have to visit the one-who-must-be-feared someday or the other.




***This Is Going T o Hurt Just A Little Bit***

One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair with
my mouth wide open.

And that I will never have to do it again is a hope that I am against
hope hopen.

Because some tortures are physical and some are mental,
But the one that is both is dental.
It is hard to be self-possessed
With your jaw digging into your chest.

So hard to retain your calm
When your fingernails are making serious alterations in your life line
or love line or some other important line in your palm;

So hard to give your usual effect of cheery benignity
When you know your position is one of the two or three in life
most lacking in dignity.

And your mouth is like a section of road that is being worked on.
And it is all cluttered up with stone crushers and concrete mixers and
drills and steam rollers and there isn't a nerve in your head that
you aren't being irked on.

Oh, some people are unfortunate enough to be strung up by thumbs.
And others have things done to their gums,
And your teeth are supposed to be being polished,
But you have reason to believe they are being demolished.
And the circumstance that adds most to your terror
Is that it's all done with a mirror,
Because the dentist may be a bear, or as the Romans used to say, only
they were referring to a feminine bear when they said it, an ursa,
But all the same how can you be sure when he takes his crowbar in one
hand and mirror in the other he won't get mixed up, the way you
do when you try to tie a bow tie with the aid of a mirror, and forget
that left is right and vice versa?

And then at last he says That will be all; but it isn't because he then
coats your mouth from cellar to roof
With something that I suspect is generally used to put a shine on a
horse's hoof.

And you totter to your feet and think. Well it's all over now and after
all it was only this once.
And he says come back in three monce.

And this, O Fate, is I think the most vicious circle that thou ever sentest,
That Man has to go continually to the dentist to keep his teeth in good
condition when the chief reason he wants his teeth in good condition
is so that he won't have to go to the dentist.

Written By: OGDEN NASH.