I fully admit it. I’m a big baby when it comes to pain. Shots: I need to bite on those Popsicle sticks (or a bullet) and look away. Give Blood: Not intentionally, only when I fall or pierce and then pass out. Papercuts: I scream like a schoolgirl who just found her boyfriend making out with her best friend behind the locker room.
I have good reason for this behavior…! When I was 12 I was in the hospital for appendicitis and the young nurse-in-training at the time poked my arm to get blood and inadvertently hit my bone. It hurt. A lot! (In fact, It hurts me now just thinking about it). My entire body never forgot that shivering internal feeling. And to a 12- year old boy I don’t care how hot that nurse was. She was the devil. All her flirting and sneaking me ice cream didn’t help either. O.K. at the time, maybe just a little.
So imagine my reaction when I got a toothache last week and didn’t tell anybody (well, my wife) about it until it got really bad. I only go to the dentist for nothing more than a cleaning. I’ve been pretty good about cavities since I was in Jr. High (haven’t really had any since then)…. but for this I had to grudgingly see the dentist. She told me I needed something called “crown” (...huh? like prince Charles or the Burger King, King?). When I didn’t understand what that meant she literally drew me a picture on a post-it (ahh, now that’s speaking my language!) of a tooth, being shaved down, being drilled and then being capped. When I realized what they were going to do, I told them “Look! Mel Gibson is waiting in the lobby”, and then I ran away. (I’m writing this from a cave in Guam.)
7 comments:
My wisdom teeth started popping out when I was about 19. I never went to get them taken out, and now they are like stunted. They will shift every once in a while and cause me some pain but I refuse to get them taken out. I hate drills. I won't go until they have to promise to knock me out first...
I'm with you, buddy. I suspect I have a cavity (or 5) to have filled but I'm shaking in my flip-flops at the idea of going to the dentist. I've never had cavities before, I'm expecting the worst. Like your picture of Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors, that's what I'm expecting.
DUDE! She hit the bone!?!
Daaamn!
I have to give blood regularly or my insides will rust away and poison me to death.
But she actually hit the bone? I think I'd prefer to rust away from the inside out!!
go for the denture . . .
I'm just sayin'
Ooh, I don't envy you. My dental hygienist said I needed a deep cleaning. I haven't called them back to schedule the appointments. Yes - more than one!
I think the problem is, when a patient is like you and I and hasn't got cavities, they make things up because they aren't getting enough money out of ya!
Hate the dentist. Hate. So. Much.
I fear the dentist, but then again, my dentist... you know, I'm too lazy to retype that comment. I answered you over at my blog. :)
I'm not at all afraid of shots but that bone-poking story just gave ME shivers. Acccckkkk!
You need one of those dentists with the good drugs.
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