Want to really see me go over the edge? Send me to the dentist. It’s definitely a Near Occasion of Anxiety for me.
I have cried at the dentist’s before, when I was told just how much work had to be done. I think this was either shortly before or shortly after Little Brother was born. I remember being so upset that day that the dentist decided not to start the work then, because I was just barely keeping it together.
The past couple of years, I have avoided the dentist. I have neglected my own dental health as well as my children’s, because none of us liked the dentist we were seeing (what did it for me: she asked if all my children were “from the same marriage.”) And then Middle Sister chipped a tooth and I had a loose crown, so we went to a new-to-us dentist on Wednesday.
I was holding it together well, I thought, even though Middle Sister took every opportunity to light into me for not keeping up on her dental care. I listened to him explain that I would need a mouth guard because I grind my teeth, and that he didn’t like the looks of the crown; it would come out again, he said, if I didn’t take care of the grinding. I stayed calm. I took the news like an adult and figured I’d just deal with it.
I did not expect to lose that crown 3 days later while eating fajitas. I’m just glad it happened in my own home. But now I look like a hockey player (it’s a canine tooth), and I can’t get an appointment until Thursday to fix this.
Lovely.
I have 3 more days to wig out, and I’m doing just that, thankyouverymuch. I really wish that I had just insisted on getting all my teeth pulled out on that day years ago when I broke down in the dentist’s office and had to be sent home.
Is there Novocaine that works on the emotions? Because I need some.
