I am like a flower. Really ... I am . When it comes to the dentist.
In my life I have tolerated many pains. I have suffered the pain of broken bones , fractures, sprains, incisions, lacerations, contusions and many other pains ending with "ions". I also have endured the pains of heartbreaks, hardknocks and even hard-headed people. Often times, I have raised the bar on my pain threshold, reaching new heights as Life throws me its plethora of curve balls. BUT, there is one pain that I could never bring myself to conquer or even try facing. A toothache.
The toothache, a severe life threatening , migraine making, swearing inducing and a totally skull numbing sensation experienced when a tooth undergoes complications such as decay and etc. Amongst these, the biggest culprit... the WTC (Wisdom Tooth Complications). The one I have been diagnosed with now. How cruel can life be to me?
I always had felt that I had too many teeth. Ten years back I realised that it was due to the Wisdom Teeth ( I wonder why do they even call them that). Since everything was going ok, i turned a blind eye to the fact that I had 4 extra teeth. Recently, after a hearty meal, I dislodged a piece of food particle from my teeth using my tongue and spat it out. When the particle hit the basin, it made a "cling" sound. At that moment, my worst fear was confirmed.. I had to visit the dentist. Because the particle was actually a fragment of my Wisdom Tooth.
I made my appointment with the NDC. Like everyone else, when forced to do something that you dread, I tried to come up with excuses to postpone it. I even tried my hand at reading omens. I told the cab driver National Dental Center and he brought me to the National Cancer Center, what more of an omen can I ask for? Then, I realised I wasn't wearing socks. My God! This is the second omen. Walking into the glass panel of a malfunctioning Auto-Door entrance was the third. Thats it. I had enough signs to call it off ... till the mother calls in to seal my fate. "Don't let anyone know that you are afraid of the dentist. They will spit at you. You call yourself a grown up?!".. Yup that did it alright. My ego and pride were not ready to be subjugated to the insults of mummy. So i registered myself and got myself x-rayed and diagnosed. My Wisdom teeth had to go.
The dentist gave me 2 options.
1) Go for General Anesthetics and knock out while they pluck my teeth out. All 4 of them.
2) Go for Local Anesthetics and pluck out only 2 at a time. Meaning I come back one more time.
Just like a true Singaporean dentist. She read out all probabilities of the surgery.
1) " With G.A there is a 1 % chance that you may slip into a coma while you are in surgery... but then there is always a risk in everything"
2) " With both procedures, there is again another 1% chance of your nerves getting affected and you losing all sensations in your mouth." I am a Singaporean!!! there's nothing to do in Singapore but EAT!
3) "It's possible that your sinus cavities can be punctured during the surgery, if we detect it, we will patch it for you during the surgery itself...... this also is another 1% chance."
Now you understand why I am freaked out? My teeth is so close to my brain. Anything can happen when the dentist is happily yanking it out.. Which i have to witness since i opted for local anesthetics. Damn SHIT! I have to see a stout Chinese fella (assumingly) standing over me and probing my mouth... Whats the world coming to? Crap.... The Tooth Fairy better make me a good deal!
