Rant #2,953: Open Sesame

I have to go to the dentist later today.
 
Just a routine cleaning, nothing more, hopefully.
 
My teeth feel fine, so I don’t think I have any cavities.
 
“Look, ma, no cavities!” as that old commercial went.
 
Does anyone like going to the dentist?
 
I certainly don’t.
 
I don’t like people sticking their fingers in my mouth, looking around for things, and ultimately, finding something that needs to be taken care of.
 
I can’t ever remember liking to go to the dentist, not ever.
 
As a kid, I was so nervous at my dentist--Dr. Jurow, my very first dentist-- that he told my mother that I had to go to a special dentist, that used sweet air, so that I would be calm enough to be worked on.
 
So we had to go into Brooklyn, near where my grandparents lived and where my mother grew up, to go to Dr. Silver, an old-style dentist who had been my mom’s dentist when she was a kid and who used this new-fangled sweet air on patients like me.
 
And I went there from about five or six years old until I was in my early 20s, and I received the sweet air and was fine when I was being worked on at the dentist.
 
My teeth were so screwed up—naturally, not from lack of brushing or anything that I didn’t do—that Dr. Sliver once pulled between eight and 12 baby teeth at one sitting because they were not coming out naturally.
 
One that he pulled looked like a dog’s tooth, because it still had the bulb at the top that affixed it to my gums.
 
That is a procedure that never would be done today in one sitting, but way back when, they began a procedure and finished it in one sitting.
 
And all the while—and for pretty much all the time I saw Dr. Silver—he berated me like an older dentist would, yelled and screamed and told me that my teeth would never be right and things like that.
 
All of that work led me to get my braces, which also was not a fun time in my life as far as my teeth were concerned.
 
When a wax mold was made of my mouth, my braces doctor got pelted by me throwing up all over him when the wax went down my throat and I gagged.
 
From that time on, I absolutely hated to go to not only the dentist—Dr, Silver was still my dentist then—and to the orthodontist—poor Dr. Abelson, who never forgot that I threw up all over him.
 
For the three or more years he saw me, he was very rough on my mouth--I still have scars in my mouth from that period--and if it wasn’t for the receptionist—kind Mrs. Christian, the mother of one of my schoolmates—I might never have survived that place or that time in my life.
 
I don’t know what happened to Dr Abelson, but I do know what happened to Dr. Silver.
 
I saw Dr. Silver through my teen years into my early 20s, and he treated my mouth with care as he yelled and screamed at me about what I was doing--or not doing--to keep my teeth in tip top shape.
 
Then one day, it must have been 1979 or 1980, my mother and I went for one of my dental appointments, where we would kill two birds with one stone and also see my grandmother, who was now widowed and lived across the street from the dental office.
 
We entered the dental office, and while the receptionist was still there—Emily, another kind lady who, like Mrs. Christian, helped me get through my dental work—Dr. Silver was not.
 
There was another doctor there, but it was not Dr, Silver.
 
I never went into Brooklyn again for my dental work, going to various dentists on Long Island from that time on.
 
We later learned that while doing a root canal, Dr. Silver literally dropped dead just a few hours prior to my appointment.
 
At least he was doing what he loved into his 80s when he died, but I wonder if he was yelling at his poor patient when he suffered this fatal heart attack?
 
One of my nightmares was that something similar would happen to me when I was being treated by my dentist, and while no dentist dropped dead while working on me, I did have an incident that was as much like this nightmare as it possibly could bam without any fatalities.
 
About 10 years ago or so, I, too, was in the middle of a root canal—what is it with root canals that bring out these nightmares?—and right smack dab in the middle of the procedure, the dental office that I was in completely lost power.
 
I have all these things sticking out of my mouth, and there was no power to proceed, but God forbid the dentist tell me anything about what was happening?
 
I sat there as the dentist left the room I was in, and nobody told me anything.
 
I squirmed around in the chair with all this stuff hanging out of my mouth for about a half hour, but I kind of figured out what had happened after a few minutes, as I noticed that there were no lights on in the room and the big dental light that they use was not on, either.
 
Finally, after about a half hour orf agony, everything went back on, and the doctor proceeded back into the room and finished the root canal … but never once told me what had happened.
 
After the procedure, I found out from the receptionist what had happened, which was what I figured happened, but I have never forgotten the rudeness that that doctor displayed by never telling me anything during the half hour of agony or afterwards.
 
I don’t think I ever used that dentist again, and for good reason.
 
So my history with dentists is not the best, and even when I go in for a simple cleaning, it is not too pleasurable, and I inevitably have flashbacks about Dr. Silver and Dr. Abelson and these other dentists that I have had.
 
I actually have a very good dentist now, one that not only knows what he is doing, but has excellent bedside manner, but I still shudder when I go to the dentist, although I don’t need the sweet air anymore.
 
So wish me well today, I am sure that everything will go fine …
 
It is just that when the dentist says “Open wide!” I get chills up my spine that have little to do with the state of my mouth, my teeth, or my gums, and has more to do with my brain than anything else.