Teething Woes

I hate to admit this but I have a phobia towards dentist. This has been a built on problem since small. It all happened during primary school. I attended the government school just like any child. Unlike students these days that have the privilege of attending fancy international or private schools. There was a room in my primary school that was used as a dental clinic for practicing dentists and nurses. There was also a room that was used for dialysis for outsiders which was situated next to the dental clinic. The students in my school were like guinea pigs to the dentists that came. These dentists and nurses would come to our classrooms with those green dental cards and call out our names. Once your name is called, you would have to go to the dental room to have dental procedures performed on, namely drilling and filling, extraction. I remember clearly my mother stated specifically on the consent form that I shall not receive any form of dental procedures from the practicing dentists. But I still get picked on. When I was in standard one, and didn't know better I just sat still on the dentist chair and let them practice on. I dare not even cry over the pain. So as I got on to higher level, and was more aware of things, I noticed something amiss on my so called dental card. There was a column that was the parental consent and my card was obviously tampered. By tempered meaning, initially it was underlined not allowed but that "not allowed" part of the consent was cancelled out by pen and underlined allowed. My parents never allowed that. Come to think of it, the consent was probably tampered by a teacher, since there was a sensitive nationality lady teacher that hates me for no apparent reason. All because of a lie that was told by her favourite student when we were in standard3. She has not stop picking on me ever since that incident. Psychopathic bitch. So when I was called to the dentist, I told the nurse that my parents did not give their consent for any dental procedures to be performed on me during school. The nurse then scolded me badly. She even threatened me to bring my a formal letter from my parents to state that I shall not be touched as they are doing a good deed by giving free dental procedures. Free your ass. You destroyed my perfectly fine teeth by drilling holes on it to practise so that you can pass your clinical hours. So I told her fine. I will bring it. She added, you go fix your teeth and come back and show me or I will call you out again and fix it. So stupidly I did as her threat. Thinking back, that was really stupid. Should have just complained to the government. Sigh the time when computer was not widely used in our land. I returned to her with a letter from my parents stating that I refuse any form of dental procedures from them and handed it to her. Thinking that this is the end. How stupid. It is not. The letter was probably discarded and I was victimised throughout my primary school life. Each time I go to the dental room, I will repeat the my parents do not consent phrase. How brazen of me. Once I was called in to the dental room and there was this fat lady nurse/dentist wannabe on duty. So I went on the chair for the routine. She was rude and rough. She disregarded my no dental procedure phrase and forced herself on me. She was so bad at her drilling that it hurt like hell. I was crying and pleading for her to stop. She got angry and shouted at me "buka" telling me to keep my mouth opened so that she could drill. The other nurse, and older Chinese lady tried to calm me down and started to intercept from afar telling me that it will be over soon. The fat sensitive nationality, unqualified nurse/dentist wannabe kept drilling and I was struggling in pain. I think she hit the nerves or gums or something and I bled. Only then she stopped and told me to gargle. I can't remember if she was the one who continued with the filling or the other nurse. From then on, I have a phobia of going to the dentist. I fear hearing the sound of the drilling equipment. Simply just fear the term dental. Recently, I have a very bad toothache. It got from bad to worse and became unbearable. I had to take medication to help suppress the pain but to no avail. It hurts till my face, ears and skull hurts. I called up the dental clinic to schedule an appointment and the nurse said that nothing can be done unless the pain subsides and told me to continue taking medication till the swelling subsides. So when the swelling lessen after over two weeks, I immediately went to the dentist. The first thing the dentist said to me when she saw me was " has your face always been lopsided (meaning bigger on one side). I was stunned. My auto response was "I don't know". To which the dentist replied " how can you not know? You look at yourself everyday". Well I don't self admire daily at the mirror, so I don't know. Or perhaps I'm used to seeing my face that I don't notice that it is lopsided. The nurse handed her a big mirror and she held the mirror to my face and ask me to see whether I look like that daily. I asked her " is my face swollen?" The dentist replied "it looks swollen to me" . She proceeded to sit on her chair and told me to lie down to be examined. She then told me to go for an X-ray. All the nurses were chuckling at me. I must have been really amusing to them. The dentist then asked " are you pregnant?"  I told her "no, I'm not married" . She found it funny and said " it's a standard question I ask everyone, including children. Then I was ushered into the X-ray room. The nurses from the dentist room came with me to the X-ray room. They were still chuckling at me. One of the nurse then asked if I'm wearing earrings and if I am to kindly remove them. So I removed my earrings and place them in my bag. Then she held out a black vest to be worn and said that it's a little heavy and strapped it on me. It was indeed heavy. She told me to stand in front of the X-ray machine and proceeded to place a small zip lock bag on a small plastic stick on the machine. She instructed me to place my face on the chin rest and proceeded to adjust the height. She then told me to bite on that piece of plastic that she "wrapped" earlier and align my face with the red laser lines in front of me. I bit on the plastic and began to feel pain on my aching side. Because of the terrible toothache, I couldn't even close my mouth hard or slightly harder because it will hurt badly. The other nurse start the machine and the side headrests stated clamming in to hold my face in position. The machine started giving out instructions : close your eyes, the X-ray will take place now. After a while the machine instructed me to open my eyes and that was done. I was ushered back to the dentist room an my X-ray image was already displayed on the monitor in there. The dentist was already looking at it and she explained to me my situation. I saw my once upon a time gloriously beautiful teeth on the monitor. My teeth has always been the envy of others in school since the were always perfectly straight and I never had braces. Which come to think of I should have had braces to safe me this agony now. There I saw the pain in the jaw. The prick. Lying perfectly flat on my jaw, the stupid don't know how to grow wisdom tooth. It should be call anal tooth since it is stupid good for nothing and only cause pain and agony. The dentist said that my wisdom tooth root is touching the nerve, which is why I feel pain. She can't be for certain whether it is touching or very near the nerve because the X-ray does not show. So definitely surgery is required to remove this tooth. She said she will give general anesthesia to remove the tooth and then will assess whether the tooth have cause further problems to the tooth in front. Hearing the word surgery made my phobia resurface. I have never had any surgery in my life. And to have surgery when I'm fully aware of it drove my phobia to a higher level. I might end up with a panic attack during the surgery and cause problem for the ongoing procedure. The dentist my have noticed my face colour changed and suggested that I think it over and prepare myself and come when I'm ready. Because the pain had been unbearable, I wanted for it to be done there and then but my gums was still swollen so the dentist was adamant to perform the surgery for fear that the surgery will cause further inflammation and complication and extreme pain. So she suggest that I go back no take her prescribed medication until my swelling subside and reschedule the procedure to another day. The bill came to close to 200 for just the X-ray and medication. I don't know how much the procedure will be and the dentist say that there will be possible crowning if the front tooth is badly damaged. And that was just for one wisdoms tooth. I have three. One still hidden in the gum. Fml.