Juz went I recovered from HFMD last week, my wisdom tooth starts acting up...the constant pain kept me up from last Saturday till last Monday. I couldn't take it anymore and decided to visit the dentist. It was so painful, that you can feel the pain from your gums to your ear and then to your head. The kind of pain that kept you up all night, your gums all swollen and you can hardly eat without wincing in pain.
I hate to see the dentist coz of a very, very bad experience that I had during my primary school days. That time I was in Primary 3 and had a hole on one of the back teeth. The dentist was so rough with me while she was doing the cleaning...the way she dig and scrub the tooth reminds me of when my mum cleans the scales of the fishes, rough and hard. That was a very frightful, hellish nightmare that I went through, crying throughout the whole process and when she pull the tooth out, OH MY GOD! The way she pull, you thought she was trying to pull out my head as well.
Well, in this case, it was one of those emergencies, when you really need to go and see one. Herman recommends his dentist to me, said he is really good, gentle and the whole procedure is painless. His clinic was at Raffles Link called the Dental Pearl. I was doubtful at first but since he went to the same dentist to pull out his wisdom tooth so I guess I give it a try. He was good enough to accompany me (partly because he know that I will chicken out at the last minute). When I reach the clinic, I really feel like peeing on the spot. If not for the immense pain and the sleepless nights plus a very hungry stomach coz I cant eat properly, I would have never step into this place.
After filling out my particulars, I was told that I had to wait for an hour since the dentist was in surgery. Hearing the word 'SURGERY', really made me shake inside. I guess the nurse must have notice my pale face cause she told me to walk around for a while and she will call me when its my turn. The first thing I do when I got out of the clinic is to find a toilet. Then we walked around Marina Square for a while, Herman wanted to get a new sandal cause the old one is quite worn out. Along the way, I had a very bad headache because of the toothache. During this time, the nurse gave me a call and told me that it will be my turn soon. That we will have to be there in 10 minutes time. I got quite jitterish and scared again. Kept asking Herman a lot of questions about the procedure, the dentist and whether he can accompany me during the whole thing. Herman ignored me the whole way (that was quite rude) but just told me not to worry.
When we reach the clinic, we were told to wait for a few minutes while the dentist was talking to his patient. Apparently this guy got to have his wisdom tooth taken out as well but he needed surgery. This involves cutting up the gums to take out the tooth then stitching the gums back again. Sounds gruesome to me...
When it was my turn, I asked Herman again whether he can follow me. He gave me a weird and funny look and said, "GO IN." I did with the nurse accompanying me and telling me to relax. Probably notice how worried I looked. Well, anyway, once I sat down on the chair, the dentist came in and asked me how things was. He seems quite friendly and as Herman said, was quite helpful and gentle. After a few minutes of prodding around my tooth (which was quite painful), he told me that my left wisdom tooth had a hold in it and that it is a very big hole. He also informed that because of my pregnancy, he would not extract the tooth out as that will need surgery. He can only 'patch' up the hole with fillings. After going into details of the procedure and what he is going to do with the tooth and everything,he told me to relax, to put up my hand during the process if I cannot take in the pain. He did told me that he will not be using any anesthetics to ease the pain due to my pregnancy. A sudden flashback of my primary school dentist came back to my mind and I was prepared for a lot of stinging and crying again.
But it turns out that he was very good and proffessional about the whole thing. He was very thorough (that can be heard from all the drilling and digging going around the tooth), very gentle (felt pain but it was quite mild) and very professional (kept telling me what he is going to do next). The nurse was also very kind and friendly, kept telling me to relax and tell me to put up my hand if there is any pain. But I bear it through and come out of it in one piece (or with all my teeth in my mouth). He told me that there will still be some pain after the procedure and that it will take a few days to get over it. However, he was not able to tell me if patching up the wisdom tooth will be temporary or permanent.
The bill later was quite a bomb though the whole thing was kind of worth it. Just cleaning and polishing the whole teeth, consultation plus the 'patching' up brings the amount to $107. Wow! Herman and I did some calculation if I ever needed to do any surgery to my tooth, the amount will come out to at least a thousand. Since the surgery is able to claim from medisave, we still need to come out 400-500 upfront to the clinic first.
Right now, is the second day from my visit to the dentist. I had no more pain from the tooth but the gums are swollen around it. The nurse had warned me earlier of all this discomfort but that it will probably go away in a few more days. The only thing I take is panadol for the pain but the thing that I hate most is when I have to eat. I can only chew from the right side but even then, I had to chew slowly and a little at a time because of the pain. So most of the time, I tried to take soups and cereals. That I dont mind so much but Shadiq apparently could not quite understand why he can't touch ibu's face or pull ibu's ears anymore. He is getting quite rough and there are times when he will suddenly pull both your ears or just grab your cheeks. That will be the time when I will shout in pain and he will run for cover under the bedsheets. Because of the swollen gums, the pain will be a bit more intense especially when he grabs my cheeks. That will set me shouting and screaming bloody murder real loud while he runs around the room to hide and get away from the crazy monster.
I am praying real hard that this will be my last toothache......
No comments:
Post a Comment