I Suck At The Dentist

this morning, i had my semi-annual dentist appointment. like my dentist recommends, i have a dental cleaning every six months. so today happened to be one of those days.

too bad i suck at the dentist. don't get me wrong, i like my dentist. my friend (jen) loves her dentist. i think jen would go every day to the dentist if she could. the thing i dislike about going to the dentist is wondering if i did enough in those six months to prevent cavities.

aside from that, my dental experience is always great. my dental hygienist (joan) usually tells me stories about things happening in her life. currently, her car is leaking oil. so, she had to take it to the mechanics this morning which caused her to run a little late.

joan is funny. she told me that for christmas, her present to her daughters was the removal of their wisdom teeth. nothing says merry christmas like the extraction of wisdom teeth, anesthesia, blood, and gauze.

among the other things i learned about while at the dentist was that there is a dental convention this friday... and that there is a sucking machine located in the basement of the office. the sucking machine is like a vacuum in that it sucks everything downstairs and empties out into the drain/sewer system. apparently, there used to be a trap for the "solids" that had to be emptied out ever so often by the staff. fortunately, that has been done away with thanks to modern technology. i was told that i would probably find out about the sucking machine because it is used during the filling of cavities.

speaking of which, i unfortunately have a cavity. i almost escaped scott free thinking that i did not have a cavity. after joan cleaned my teeth, she didn't notice anything. she then asked to take x-rays just in case. (it has been two years since my last x-rays. apparently, x-rays should be taken every two years. so joan quickly took my x-rays.) when my dentist came in, he checked my teeth... everything looked good... and then he looked at the x-ray.

as it turned out, there was a cavity forming between two of my teeth. both my dentist and joan were surprised because the location of the cavity was somewhat peculiar. (for some reason, my dentist and joan seem to think that i have very good strong teeth.) unfortunately, my dentist believes that my teeth are curved in such a way that plaque got trapped between the teeth... and hence caused the cavity. damn those x-rays.

anyway, i sadly have to get a filling... albeit a little filling as my dentist put it. but he said it definitely needed to be done. go figure...