I Think the Dentist Etched My Skull

If there was a single fact you had to know about me it should be this one:  Going to the dentist causes major consternation.  I had to go today for the start of a root canal, the appointment having been scheduled a few weeks ago.  The visit kind of crept up on me.  Bekah had called to confirm the appointment Tuesday but that was two days ago with Wednesday in between.  Lots can happen in two days time to make a soul forget something like a root canal.

At noon-thirty the Danger Ranger was cranked and driven to Williams' Drive to sever an arm at the elbow to pay for the procedure and then be forced to endure infliction of pain from unseen devices try to enjoy the nitrous oxide while all manner of activity was going on in my oral orifice.

Nitrous Oxide, N2O, is what's used to coerce myself to go to the dentist.  Not only is it a mild anesthetic, it also incites this gray matter to see, hear, and think the funniest things.  A pen and pad should be carried to try to write down the silliness but it'd be moot point;  the scribblings probably couldn't be read.

Today was only slightly different from other days in the vertically and laterally challenged recliner o'fear dentist chair.  There was less drilling and more clamping and poking and bleaching going on.  I swear, at one point Dr. R  was recreating-by-etching Michelangelo's Last Judgement inside my skull.

Dr. R and his assistant have their own language, you know.  Some of it's in English, I'm sure.  Today I'm positive I heard the word probe.  It made me shudder.  And explorer.  Now wait a minute!  Isn't to probe also to explore?  Is one a lesser of the other?  Worse yet, is one greater than the other?  And if I were a betting person, I'd bet I'd heard Dr. R say crampon.  I wouldn't put it past him -- all the better to climb on in there with, although it caught my attention when he said piton.  Piton?  Seriously???  He's going mountain climbing in my mouth??

I desperately needed to carry on a telepathic conversation with his tummy but it's right after lunch and his tummy's asleep.  At one point Dr. R shaved a piece of rebar from the foundation of the building and shoved it between two teeth straight into an eye socket inserted a metal sheath of some sort within the tooth to support the structure and make it savable.  I don't know exactly what happened but  I heard metal and cyborg all in the same sentence.  Whatever he did made my ears pop and eyes water.  I made it a point thereafter to keep my eyes open and observing, just to make sure he was watching what he was doing.

I suppose he must've felt an intense stare coming up from the multi-positional chaise lounge o' torture treatment chair.  There weren't any more sudden and severe moments of pain after I started watching, difficult when the line of sight is hindered by the N2O line (but it's not going annnnnywhere).  Tools and materials are handled quickly and effectively as the work progresses.  I forgot to watch him watch what he was doing after a while, distracted by a single lacy cobweb over the door in the corner, it's size only large enough to show air movement.

After hearing a few more words like bleach, collar, crouton, and suction, a few x-rays were made, everything was taken out of my mouth and the nitrous oxide was switched to plain O2.

Much to my delight and surprise, all of the inside of my mouth is still there;  every tooth and tongue accounted for and in fine working order.

That piton must've worked wonders...