Say Ahhhhh (My dentist story)

Chapter 3: Facing Phobias

Charlie's POV

As we pull up outside of 'general smiles dentistry' my stomach told me that I shouldn't have said yes. 'WHY DID I SAY YES?' I internally curse myself. When we stop and Ella gets out, I seriously consider running, but my brain tells me to stop being ridiculous and get it over with. Ella comes around to my side and opens the door to a shaking, hyperventilating Charlie. 

"Woah, Woah, hey. You're ok, you're not even inside yet. As you said, we go slowly. This is all under your terms." she smiles sweetly at me, trying to reassure me that I'm not going to die. I slowly step out of the car once I have calmed down (it took a while) and follow Ella as she leads me into a bungalow-styled building, but bigger. She unlocks the door as I twiddle with the charm bracelet that my brother gave me for my birthday. God, I wish he was with me. 

Once she opens the door, Ella puts her hands on my shoulders and leads my inside. She immediately takes me back to an exam room after switching all the lights on. While she's getting all the equipment ready, she motions for me to take a seat, and I try, but I'm not moving. I will my feet to move but they don't budge. I feel my knees go from under me. Just before I'm about to hit the ground, Ella comes and catches me. It could have been like a scene from an old 60's romance film, except for the pure horror and tears in my eyes. 

"It's ok, I've got you. There's no need to worry, I'm not going to hurt you" she says while stroking my hair to calm my nerves. It does help somewhat, but I still feel like I'm going to pass out. Then Ella helps me onto the dreaded dentist's chair. I squirm to get off it, but Ella puts a hand on my shoulder to settle me. "It's ok, you're ok. It's only a chair," she says gently, soothing me a little. I eventually manage to calm down. 

I look at Ella staring at me, concern and worry evident in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, you're right, it is just a chair. I'm fine" I say, half trying to convince her, half trying to convince myself. I try and force myself to calm down, I know I'm not in any danger. Ella wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone her best friend. I love Ella, but I hate her profession. I lie back in the chair, take a deep breath and close my eyes. "You can get started now" I sigh. 

Ella's POV

God, I feel so bad for her. I quickly get my mask, gloves and instruments ready and put on my mask and gloves. 

" Ok, first, I'm going to ask you a few questions if that's Ok," I say, pulling my mask down to my chin.

"What? Oh, umm yeah, that's fine" she says. I think she zoned out. I ask her a few basic questions, most of which I already knew the answer to, but I needed to make sure. But then, I got to one I wasn't so sure about.

"So, how long has it been since you visited the dentist?" She took a long time to respond. I think she was embarrassed. " It's ok, there's no need to be embarrassed, I just need to know so that I can update your file." She hesitates, trying to think about her answer carefully. 

"Is there any way I could type it and then you can look at it? I just don't wanna say it out loud" she asks, clearly feeling embarrassed. I show her where she needed to type it and the puts in a number. I quickly glance at it and I'm surprised by the number, but I knew it was going to be bad. It said 7. She hadn't been in 7 years. I look back at her and smile like it was perfectly normal. She'd missed 14 appointments. Holy shit, no wonder she's got toothache. 

"Can I quickly do your x-rays?" I ask Charlie. She says yes, and I get all the things I need for bitewings and full mouth x-rays. She copes well with that, probably because they aren't painful. I did see her wince and whimper at one point though, I think I may have accidentally touched her bad tooth with the sensor. Once they are done, I decide to try and get the exam done while the x-rays develop.

"Am I alright to lean the chair down, or do you need a bit more time?" I ask, not wanting to push her.

"Yeah, you can lean it down" I smile down at her, thrilled with how well she's coping so far. I slowly begin to lean the chair down, she looked like she was about to be sick. I put a bib on her, pull up my mask and grab my mirror and explorer. Her eyes go wide so I explain before she can get too scared. 

"It's ok, it's ok. This is just a mirror," I say, showing her my mirror, " and this is called an explorer. I only use this to count your teeth and see if there's anything wrong. It doesn't hurt, I promise." I grab her hand and demonstrate it on her finger as I do with children that get scared of the instruments. She queasily nods her head and calms down a little bit. " Is there any chance I could have a look?" 

"Umm, ok" she agrees.

"Could you open for me please?" I see her mouth inch open. " A little bit wider?" she seems like she's really trying, but can't do it, so I help her out. I gently massage her jaw and it slowly opened little by little. "Just raise you to hand if you want me to stop at all," I advise. I quickly slip my mirror and explorer into her now-open mouth. Considering she hasn't seen a dentist in 7 years, Charlie has pretty good teeth. I quickly see the problem but decide to ignore it for now. "You're doing amazing, I'm so proud of you!" I praise to keep her distracted. I spot a few other things as well but don't touch them, I know it will only cause her pain. I take my tools out of her mouth. " Where is the toothache that you were talking about?" She keeps her mouth open, which I'm quite surprised by. she points to the bottom left side of her mouth, I knew I'd got the right one then. I have another quick check around and then start to sit the chair back up, startling Charlie in the process. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you" we both chuckle. 

"So? What's up?" Charlie questions. 

"Ok, so you have a few cavities," I say, not wanting to say how many.

"How many?" Charlie asks, getting worked up. Damnit, it's like she can read my mind.

"Umm...4. ill need to check the x-rays to make sure, but I'm pretty sure that the tooth you were complaining about might need a root canal." I say, my voice dripping in sympathy. " I can do it all today. I will sedate you, so you will go to sleep and wake up and not know what happened." I say, trying to make it better. She looks very relieved that she doesn't have to be awake for it. She nods to me, giving me the ok. I get the lidocaine and the nitrous oxide ready. I give Charlie the nose piece for the nitrous and she puts it on her nose the way I told her to. In 5 minutes, she was out.