The dentist

When I was a child I had to visit the dentist many, many times. I was not big on eating candy, and I certainly brushed my teeth a whole lot. Yet, somehow, as the silver fillings in my teeth attest to, I had plenty of cavities.

To this day I remember how dreadful each and every one of those visits were. I remember the pain of the shots to numb my mouth, to supposedly diminish the discomfort caused by the dentist's work ahead. But what I dreaded the most, and still makes my skin crawl, is the drilling sound of that thing they use to dig in your molars, to make room for the fillings.

Yes, going to the dentist sucked big time, plenty of bad memories for me.

This past Friday, much to my dismay, I had to relive it all over again. Except this time it wasn't me, it was my girl. The dentist discovered two cavities during her last cleaning visit, so we had to go back to fix them and Friday was it. The only appointment we could make was in the morning, which was a rough way to start the day.

After they prepped Sofia they discovered one of the cavities was too close to the nerve, so first they rubbed some gel to numb her mouth a bit. That took a while to make effect. The dentist then came back and gave her one of the shots while I looked on and felt so, so bad. Sofia cried a little and said "ouch, that hurts", but calmed down relatively quick. I tried to smile and tell her it was going to be ok, but who was I kidding. Inside of me I was a mess. The dentist came back a few minutes later for the second shot. This time around Sofia knew what was coming her way, so she was scared, and I was scared for her.

After waiting yet again for the second shot to take effect, they finally put in the filling and, after a very long hour and a half, we got to leave the place. Sofia was tired of having her mouth open for so long, her teeth hurt, and the poor thing still had to go to school. I was completely freaked out and hoping we wouldn't have to go through that again anytime soon.