Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 187 (Wednesday 7 July) - OUCH!

Another day, yet another visit to a dentist. Any dentist will do it seems! While I am a huge fan of spending my money on holidays, books, and oh, I don't know, fun non-body part things, my mouth apparently believes it is now God and sets all spending priorities.


I blame myself. It started a couple of years back when I went back to the dentist after 5-6 years of pretending they are in the same realm as unicorns, Elvis and actual policy positions Julie Gillard believes in, and the dentist, a friend of mine told me that my mouth should bleed when I brush (but it makes the bowl pretty I protested, and contrasts nicely with the blue of my toothpaste), that I had very bad gingivitis and needed to fix it immediately, if not several nano-seconds before that!


So I, diligently set about tending to my mouth, flossing like my life depended on it (well for my teeth it kind of did), became an expert of various flossing products (memo to self - that is a boring topic at parties!) and after many expensive visits, and way too much time spent driving to and from Randwick, the gingivitis, like my bank balance, was gone! Then some old fillings started crumbling, I spent $2000 fixing them and lo, and behold, my mouth began, it seems, to think it was all about it.

Naturally it isn't but when teeth get something in their, um, heads - yes I know I am assigning sentient thought processes to my teeth but it works for the blog so suspend belief, much as you do when Tony Abbott says anything, and work with me on this one - there is no talking them out of it, and so a week or so back another filling failed, very painfully. My dentist told me, oh joy and bliss, that it would take an exodontist to fix it - what the hell is that I wondered?! - since the tooth in question had a downward kink to it. Yes even my teeth are quirky and individualistic. Go figure!

Which brings me to today, when I went to work very early - at my desk by 7 a.m. which is wrong on oh so many levels that I am dizzy run between them and screaming "No!" a LOT - so I could leave early at 11.45, catch a train back to the City for a 1.15 appointment to... worship my mouth! Wait, no, that's what my mouth thinks I was doing! In fact, I was silently resenting even as the dentist, Torsten, a very pleasant friendly guy, stabbed my mouth full of numbing agents, stretched a green plastic tarp across my mouth, drilled and poked and prodded - with great finesse and minimal pain thank goodness - all while I listened to John Mayer's Battle Studies CD on headphones (which meant minimal talking while I couldn't reply....yay!). It wasn't unpleasant thankfully, but it was not a walk in the park either, it cost me $1900 (well it will when all is said and done), but I can assure everyone that I was not thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts about my mouth. More like silently loathing it as I watched new glasses, a Hawaii'an holiday and sundry other fun things disappeared into the gaping maw of my mouth.

Worship? I think not!


P.S. On a funny note, their offices sit above a McDonalds! How delightfully symbiotic!)