Flying High

At her last dental cleaning, Alyssa was informed that she needed a couple of fillings. The dentist told her they were very small cavities and that filling them now would keep her from needing extensive work later.

Well, guess what? I wasn’t so happy with our dentist at the time and so…I switched dentists. I know! Go me, advocating for myself and my family. I mean, we’re the consumers here. If we’re not clicking with our current provider, it is within our rights to find a practice we do feel comfortable with.

Yes, I am justifying the switch. Sue me. I’m a work in progress.

I was due for a cleaning and had canceled my last one at the dentist with whom I wasn’t happy because I got a really bad cold and didn’t want to expose them. Then I just … didn’t reschedule.

Don’t worry. I was only three weeks overdue for my cleaning once it happened at the new dentist.

And guess what? I didn’t need any work. And the hygienist who cleaned my teeth was awesome. I know so much about her and her son and her ex-husband I feel like we’ve been friends forever, even though I’m twenty years older than she is and she could totally be my daughter if I’d had a child at twenty.

Ahem.

So since I was so happy with the service I received at my cleaning, I scheduled a consult with this new dentist for Alyssa. I couldn’t get old dentist’s office to send her most recent x-rays because they closed for like twenty seven million days between my appointment and Lyss’s consult.

So we went in x-ray-less.

It didn’t matter. I had the estimate, which told New Dentist what Old Dentist was going to do. New Dentist looked in Lyss’s mouth and agreed that those teeth should be filled. Then he offered to fill them right then and there.

Considering Alyssa’s schedule and her stress level with appointment and meets and practices and homework and Arby’s work, well, we took him up on the offer. Of course, let’s be honest here and say he wasn’t doing this out of the kindness of his heart. No, he was making about $450 off this little twenty minute appointment. So.

I was back in the room where they were examining her. I thought they’d remove me before they started the work but they didn’t. I got to stick around while New Dentist asked Lyss if she wanted to try and have the fillings done without numbing.

WHAT THE HELL!?! Seriously?

Then he asked her if she’d ever had nitrous oxide. She looked me and I replied, “No, she’s never had that.”

He asked her if she wanted to. Again, she looked at me. I told her that if she was going to go without numbing, then yes, she wanted the nitrous oxide.

Guys, I have NEVER had flings without numbing. Hell, I have to have EXTRA numbing each time I get work done. It’s awful all the way around.

I sat there while they set everything up. The put the nitrous mask over Lyss’s nose. She laid there breathing while they continued to make their preparations for her fillings.

The dentist asked her how she was feeling.

She gave a smile and said, “I feel cozy.”

He gave me a look that said, “Oh yeah, this is working almost too well.”

Then he went to work. She said she never felt a thing. She said she thought he was just cleaning her teeth.

She swears she was hearing the conversation the dentist and I were having before we even spoke.

After it was all over, she asked me in awe, “Does anyone ever steal those canisters just to get high?”

Probably.

She said she felt like she was spinning the entire time. Each time the dentist would stop and do something else, she’d start spinning the other direction.

High Lyss is a silly Lyss. I was glad Tom had driving her to me that afternoon so she didn’t have to drive herself home. Not only would it have been unsafe for her to drive, having her with me was just fun.

As we were walking out of New Dentist’s office, Alyssa declared, “We need to come back to this place.”

I guess we’ve found a new home for our dental needs. For what it’s worth, Old Dentist Never offered nitrous. Jerk.