Backchat With Catboy
Our radio host is off to the dentist
I’ve had toothache for two-and-a-half years. What started off as a dull throb in the back of my mouth has peaked and troughed sporadically until last month, when it managed to pretty much ruin an entire family holiday in the UK, with pain so intense, it literally floored me. In fact, it was so excruciating, I was forced to leave the company of my in-laws.
But it wasn’t all good news. And I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I just go to get it sorted out? Because I, like roughly 13 per cent of the world’s populations, am a dentophobe.
As a child I had a great dentist but he was still the guy who stuck needles in my mouth; made me feel like he was snapping my skull with the repeated dental moulds and gave me fixed top and bottom braces three years later than everybody else, to ensure all the girls at my school had one extra reason to avoid me. Oh, and I forgot to mention, before he put the braces in he extracted four teeth to make room for them! His instruments of torture were archaic and, whilst both he and his staff had tremendously pleasant demeanours, in my eyes they were still oral psychopaths.
It was about that time I stopped going. It was a huge mistake and one of the biggest regrets of my life.
So, on our return from the UK, I booked an emergency appointment at a surgery, except it’s not called a surgery, it’s called a ‘spa’.
“Very clever,” I thought. “That’s how you lure us in for the torture.”
I stepped through the door and it actually was like a spa. Shaded rooms with ambient mood lighting, the sound of an aquarium and background music and that welcoming aroma from an air purifier. I could feel my pulse steadying.
I spent an hour with the dentist. Three minutes of him looking at my teeth and immediately identifying the problem, then 57 minutes drinking coffee and bemoaning school fees, landlords and being fathers. As I left, he casually told me to book an appointment for root canal surgery. My heartbeat quickened.
A couple of days later I was back at the dental surgery spa to see the root canal specialist. By now I was petrified. I barely noticed all the nice things I’d noticed on the first visit because I knew what was coming. All my old fears returned. It felt like the walk to the electric chair in The
Green Mile. Then the door opened…
From then on it all got a little surreal. There were a lot of dental nurses in there. Imagine a Robert Palmer video but about being addicted to flossing and not love. As I sat back in the chair, it slowly began to vibrate along the full length of my body. As one nurse affixed a bib around my neck, another offered me a hand massage, then her colleague asked if I’d also like my feet massaging. Someone else wrapped my neck in a heated (and scented) pillow, and a television directly above me played shots of the rainforest, ocean and dunes.
It’s hard to say what happened after that because I think I fell asleep. From what I understand about root canal surgery, during my slumber my mouth was numbed (first with a gel, then via injections), the problem molar was hollowed-out and the three nerves that reach deep into my face were removed, before the cavernous cavity was flushed-out, cleaned vigorously then filled, being left looking like a new tooth.
Now, because I don’t ‘do’ dentists and haven’t for a long time, I don’t know if this is the modern way or just a UAE thing. All I know is the fear has gone. I just wish I’d done it sooner.
Though I will say this, having succumbed to the UAE lifestyle, I was disappointed about one thing as I came around from the anaesthetic. Where was the manicure and French polish?