This is the second part of a four-part article about my experience with oral surgery. In case you missed the first part, you can read first, it is entitled, Dental Death Sentence.
The end of this session felt like volcanic eruption in my mouth. However, I must say that my hygienist welcomed me with a smile when I arrived at my teeth cleaning session. However, little did I know that it will be a session that will be almost an hour long. More so, it was a traumatic experience. I don’t remember if she asked me to take off my earrings, however, I asked if I could leave my sunglasses on. Luckily, I had pink eye when I went in. I was not afraid or guilty of going to the clinic with pink eye because I assumed the clinic is the safest place to go with any kind of disease or infection.
Well, lying on my back on the dental bed, the hygienist did not waste time to get to work. She wore her goggles, gloves and took a sit beside my head to get down to work. First, she started using some sharp metal tools to go between the teeth. Then, she came up with more metal tools digging in, and scrapping. She constantly used the suction to get rid of the saliva and blood that oozed out of my mouth. Mind you, she had on a mask too.
She sharpened her tools several times. I was cold dead on that bed. In fact, I don’t know how I managed not to pass out on the bed. It was my first personal visit with a dental hygienist. I had taken my son for dental cleaning several times and never saw them sharpening the tools, so I thought that my teeth must have seen some horrible days to have to go through such rigorous cleaning.
I felt bad as I saw the amount of work this woman had to do on me. I kept apologizing for coming to do over thirty years of work in one day. Trust me. That was how it felt. She said to me, “Don’t worry, I am from Mexico. We don’t go to the dentist except we feel pain, so I understand.” I felt a little relieved hoping that by her statement, she wasn’t feeling upset inside that I was one of those difficult jobs she had to do. At the end of the cleaning, she asked me to make another appointment for a second cleaning. “Second cleaning?” I thought to myself. My teeth felt like I had sands or small stones as I try to close my jaw. “This nightmare is not about to end anytime soon,” I panicked.
Before she let me go, she also took an x-tray. This time, the x-tray was not just biting a piece of gadget. It was getting under a piece of equipment that went over my whole head to take a picture of all my teeth for better view. It’s called Panoramic X-ray. While she was doing it, she put a sign out on the corridor that said, “Stay off. Radiation.” And, I thought to myself, “This is getting more serious and scary. Radiation?” She also suggested that I should go to the surgeon to have my decayed teeth removed.
I made another appointment to come back at the front desk and left for home. Then I call the University of Minnesota Oral and Maxillofacial to make an appointment. Although, that was not my first call, I had called before but was told that I had to call back the following month. And this was already the following month, so I made sure to call them at 8:00 a.m. just as they were opening up their lines to patients. I was scheduled to come in a month after.
Continue with the story soon in part three entitled, The consultation, cry baby, I want my teeth.
Thanks for reading. I hope to talk to you again through my blogs. If you have questions, comments or suggestions, please, send me a note – fill out the contact form. I want to hear from you. You can also get my recent posts by signing up to receive updates.
Bye for now, until next time.
PS: Have you checked out my blogger page yet? If you have not, you can check it out here. There I share everything that I am connected with in one place; hence, the name of the page, All Things Bukola Oriola.
