Good Dentist: Found

"This too shall pass."

Few things are more uncomfortable than the absolute blind trust I must put in my dentist when that chair begins to recline, those smudgy glasses settle against my eye sockets, and several hands in blue gloves start their probe of my mouth's insides. I've been blessed with large, weak teeth, the kind that crumble on McFlurrys, cuddle with the mandibular nerve, and split in half with the force of a toddler's headbutt, so I've spent a lot of uncomfortable time with people who solve these kinds of problems for a living. For the longest time, I'd drive six hours to the dentist in the town where my parents live until I eventually admitted that this was impractical. A five-year chain of horrible experiences closer to home that eventually led me to dentist I see today. He's a good dentist, an opinion I've formed primarily based on the fact that I've never once felt his drilling through the Novocaine and he doesn't strike me as a moron.

My dentist talks in stream-of-consciousness monologues while he's working on teeth, which I appreciate. He doesn't ask questions that I can't answer. He unintentionally gives me ideas to focus on while he works. Yesterday, while prepping my crown, he told the hygienist, "I'm awesome," and when she didn't respond, he said, "...although that sounds like mawesome, which sounds like I'm covered in moss." I imagined teeth sprouting spores and the entire office colonized in green before my brain caught onto another idea.

"It was a literally a tsunami out there," he said about a rainstorm that had just ended before I arrived, so while he was throwing out words like bur and lingual, I was attempting to develop a disaster plan in the event that a tornado were to strike before the rest of my tooth could be built and restored. I've gotten used to discomfort as long as I can expect it first. Cliches that I always thought of as hollow start to speak to me over time. It's strangely comforting to know that tomorrow, at this time, it will be over, because it always is.