I have a dentist appointment! Yippee!
For those of you who know me well, me being excited about seeing a dentist probably seems strange. I can’t lie. I have a serious dentist phobia caused by some very, very bad experiences with a dentist or two. But I have been eager to move on with the dental work since I had all that messy oral surgery, because I’m close to being done. It’s been years, and I want it over. So, I’m excited to have this appointment with my mom’s dentist.
Even better than getting an appointment with this guy is that it’s on the 8th, which means I’ll already be over there. Instead of having to fill the gas tank and make a special trip, all I have to do is extend my stay by a day. Couldn’t have worked out better! Double yippee!
Some of my friends have questioned why I would want to go to a rural dentist when I live in a big city full of dentists with all the latest modern technologies. Well, I have been to dentists here in Austin. Several of them. Hundreds of dollars wasted looking for a dentist that actually does dental work. All I have found, even among the dentists everyone suggested, were dentists who just want to grind teeth down to nubs and put man-made fake teeth over them. Seriously. No one wants to do fillings anymore. They just want to grind them down and rebuild them into the perfectly white Hollywood smile. Heaven forbid someone expect a dentist to pull a tooth that need pulling. All tooth pulling is now relegated to the world of oral surgeons. Naturally, all these things cost far more than they need to cost, when there isn’t anything at all wrong with simply filling teeth.
Therefore, I am going to a rural dentist who knows how to both fill and pull teeth, among his many other skills. Someone I’ve been told I won’t have to argue with about what I want done with my teeth. I have no need whatsoever for the perfectly white Hollywood smile. I don’t. It’s not even really an economic issue, other than the fact I think it would be a big fat waste of money to put perfectly white and completely fake teeth where I have less than perfectly white but functional teeth now. All my teeth need to do is be there, look like teeth, and function. Not costing an arm and a leg is just a bonus.
So, I’m really excited to have this appointment! And this time, provided all goes well, there will be photos. I’ve been embarrassed about my teeth, because the work has been unfinished for so long. Everyone tells me they can’t tell, but I know and can tell every time I look in the mirror, and it makes me self-conscious, so I always just assume people are saying they can’t tell just to be nice and so I won’t be embarrassed. But soon, I will be smiling a lot more again. It’s been a while, and I can’t wait to not feel weird about smiling!
Of course, first I have to survive seeing the dentist. Even though it isn’t going to be anywhere near as awful as the dental surgery, I am still phobic about people poking around in my mouth with sharp objects. I’m just going to have to get over it though, and my excitement about some future date when my teeth and jaw are exactly as I want them to be is the thing I will be keeping in mind through it all. So close! Can’t wait to be done with all of it (maybe by summer).