Teef

At the time of writing, I cannot feel the entire right side of my face. The area from my right ear to the middle of my lip is a complete expanse of numbness. I have to consciously think about not biting my tongue. This is more challenging than it sounds.

As you probably deduced from the preceding few sentences, I spent a joyful 2 hours of my afternoon in a dentist chair.

I'm a dental sissy. The idea of needles and drills and other dental torture implements invading my mouth fills me with an enormous amount of dread.

To their credit, the dentist and hygienist were both very sweet. The dentist explained the entire procedure and the hygienist held my hand and talked to me about her Mexico vacation plans while the Novocaine was being injected. Yes, I needed my hand held. I DON'T LIKE MOUTH NEEDLES OK! STOP JUDGING ME!

And so I waited to get numb. I waited and I waited. The most that happened was a vague, unpleasant tingly sensation. But I still had feeling. The hygienist prodded me a few times and asked "Can you feel this?" and looked at me strangely when I nodded in the affirmative.

The solution to this problem? Another shot! So there was more hand holding and more talk of Mexico and the creeping numbness finally started to kick in.

After about 10 minutes, I couldn't feel much of anything on the one side.

The filling itself, while uncomfortable and full of drills and noises and spraying dental matter, was quite straight forward.

As an added bonus, I watched a tv that was situated on the ceiling. Unfortunately, the show was Dr. Phil, so I had to endure whiny teenagers who were SO IN LOVE OK?! with their shifty boyfriends and who hated their parents for....being parents.

So, the dentist finished the filling, but still, I was captive in the chair.

Oh yes, this appointment was a "two fer". Not only did I get a filling, but I also suffered through the unique dental torture that is a mouthguard fitting.

Ok.

So imagine that expanding foam insulation that everyone's dad buys at Home Depot.

Now imagine taking that insulation, spraying it in your mouth and "gently clamping down" as this horrible stuff oozes all around your mouth and threatens to drip down your throat.

And imagine someone cheerfully telling you not to swallow which, of course, reminds you that you desperately want to swallow.

Oh! And this stuff sets really fast, which means it forms a pretty intense seal around your teeth.

Apparently, my teeth bonded to this stuff in an "unusual way" and the hygienist had to literally brace herself against my head in order to successfully pry the gunk off my teeth.

She reassured me that I do still, in fact, have all of my teeth still in my mouth. I have my doubts.

So that was fun.

On the up side, I managed to not to drool all over myself on the train ride home. So there's that.

I'm home now and actively waiting for the numbing to wear off. Because I received two doses of Novacaine, the dentist said it could take "anywhere between 3 and 7 (!) hours to get full feeling back again".

In the meantime, I may engage in some idle tongue chewing.