Adopted by Pentatonix

Thirty Five- Scott

Scott

I see Mitch walk in with our new patient as expected. What I didn't expect to see was Ana behind them. She never comes up here because she's afraid to, but she does if she has too. She's never been in an exam from before though. Once she even stood outside of one to ask what we wanted for lunch and refused to come in.

The girl was young. College freshman, sophomore maybe. She is clearly scared out of her mind. Her face lights up when she sees me but quickly falls when she sees the dental chair behind me. Mitch leads her to the chair and convinces her to sit down. He gives Ana a stool to sit on while he sits on the other. Mitch sits across from me while Ana sits on Mitch's side at her legs.

"Hi, how are you?" I ask
"I'm fine." She practically whispers.
"What's you name?"
"Jenny." She says meakly
"That's such a beautiful name." I say trying to get her to be less afraid.
"Thank you." She says a bit more confident
"Has anything been bothering you lately?" I ask, I need to know if her mouth is hurting so I can help her.
She nods slowly.
"Can I take a look?"
She shakes her head no and clamps her mouth shut.

"Jenny, remember our deal?" Mitch ask her. Her rubs her hand to try and comfort her.
"Deal?" I say
"We made a deal that if she let is do a checkup then she could meet all of us." Mitch tells me.
"Ohh."

"So you're a fan?"I ask her. She smiles a bit and blushes.
"Yeah."
"Well we care about our fans, and I really want to make your mouth feel better, so can I take a look please?" I say trying to convince her to let me help her. She looks scared again, her eyes full of fear.
"I only want to look, I'm not going to hurt you." I say
She nods a tiny nod which makes me smile.
"I'm going to lean the chair back, okay?"
"Okay." She whimpers, I feel bad for scaring her. I don't mean too. I really hope this goes well to show Ana that she doesn't have to be afraid of me and Mitch.

I lean the chair back and position the light on her mouth. "Can you open please?" I ask her. She complies by opening for me. "Thank you, honey."
"I'm gonna use my mirror and the explorer. It just helps me see and count your teeth. All I do is tap on them, alright?" I say, trying to be as least frightening as possible. "Raise your hand when I get to the tooth that's bothering you." I tell her

She agrees to it thankfully and opens again. I check each tooth and carefully tap on the suspecting tooth. She raises her hand and squeezes Mitch's with her other.
"Sweetheart, it looks like you have a small cavity on that tooth, but all of your other teeth look perfectly fine." I assure her. She tenses at the mention of a cavity.
"It's a really easy fix, we do this everyday. We can have it done in fifteen minutes. I promise." I say, it calms her a bit which is a good sign.

The only thing I'm worried about is the needle. I don't want her to freak out or for Ana. I'll be able to calm Jenny down quickly but Ana is a different story. I have to get her out of the room so she doesn't see it. Also, I don't know how Jenny is going to react and it might scare her more.

I put the numbing gel on a q-tip and rub it on her gum. We have to wait a few minutes for it to take effect, so that gives me time to think. Once she can't feel her gum anymore I take out the q-tip.

"Ana, can you go tell the others about our deal please? I'm sure Jenny will want to meet them as soon as she's done, isn't that right?" I ask, thankfully Jenny nods, slightly embarrassed and blushing.
"Okay." She whispers, it's the first thing she's said the whole time we've been in here.

She rushes out of the room and I can finally breath. Now I have to do this quickly so I can have it done before Ana gets back. Also because it's the most uncomfortable part of the procedure.

"Jenny, I'm gonna numb the nerves for that tooth. It's going to make your face feel funny afterwards but that's normal." I tell her as Mitch prepares the lidocaine in the needle. He holds it so that she can't see it like we do with other scared patients.

"Is it going to hurt?" She ask fearfully
"No, it won't hurt. All you feel is some pressure, that's it. You won't feel anything afterwards." I can tell it's scared her a bit because her breathing rate has increased.

"Close your eyes and hold Mitch's hand, it'll be over in a second." I say, she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Mitch hands me the needle which is now ready to be administered. I tap on her lips gently as a signal for her to open them. She opens for me but I have to push her mouth open just a bit further. I insert the needle and begin giving her the lidocaine. She whimpers each time I have to move it to a different spot. Mitch comforts her for me on the side. It kills me on the inside and I quickly apologize.
"Sorry sweetheart, I'm almost done with the needle."

I take it out and lay it on the tray. She opens her eyes which allows a tear to fall. I wipe it away swiftly with a gloved finger.
"Good job, that was the worst part. Now we wait for it to take affect."
We wait a few minutes and in that time Ana comes back. She sets back on the stool silently like before. She rubs her thumbs against the backs of her hands, one of the things she does when she's nervous. Mitch and I pretend not to notice while keeping most of our focus on Jenny.

"Are you in college?" Mitch ask
She nods "I'm a freshman."
"What are you majoring in?" I ask
"I'm studying to be a lawyer." She says happily
"Oh cool! That's a great job." I encourage, she pokes her cheek and chuckles.
"My face feels funny."
"It tingles?" I ask
"Yeah."
"It's just the lidocaine working. It's supposed to feel that way." Mitch assures her
"Can you feel this?" I ask poking her cheek
"No."
"Good, that means we can start. Just relax and I'll be done before you know it. If you need a break then raise your hand so I know to stop." I say, she nods and opens for me again. I pull up my mask and start the simple procedure by drilling out the cavity.

Jenny is calm during the whole thing, but I notice something different about Ana out of the corner of my eye. I look to her when I'm switching drill sizes to see her hunched over with her hands covering her ears staring absently at the floor with wide, fearful, eyes. Her face is pale instead of the tan, and rosy cheeks that she usually has. I can tell she's lost in some horrible memory by her eyes. She's taking rapid quiet breaths, so we didn't notice until now. I need to finish Jenny's filling so I motion to her with my head for Mitch to go take care of her.

He gets up and goes over to her. He shakes her gently to get her to acknowledge him. She looks at him with such fear that it feels like I'm being punched in the stomach. He signs to her so he doesn't freak out Jenny.

"What's wrong, princess?"
"The sound." is all she signs back. He seems to get what she means and takes out his phone along with headphones. He gives them to her and she hurriedly puts them in. He starts the song Light in the Hallway that we sang to her to make her fall asleep the other night. We had done a cover of it for an album. I can tell because I can hear it coming out of the headphones it's up so loud. She looks slightly relieved but still holds the headphone in her ears. She closes her eyes tightly and presses on her ears. She must be still able to hear it.

I finish on Jenny as quickly as I can for the sake of both of them. Jenny was starting to get restless but didn't give us any problems. I clean her teeth then allow her to get up.
"See, that wasn't so bad, now was it?" I ask her sympathetically
"No, I'm sorry I gave you so much trouble." She apologizes with a guilty look.
"You were fine, we have a lot of scared patients. Some more than others." I say, my eyes dart to Ana.

She's finally got her breathing under control but is still a bit shaken. Then again, I would be too if I had to listen to something that my father tortured me with. It's not a pleasant sound but Mitch and I have grown accustomed to it. I clean up our mess quickly while Jenny and Mitch talk. It's now that I notice Ana is gone.

"Hey, where is Ana?" I ask, they shrug and look around. I spot her standing outside the doorway how she usually does. We lead Jenny out of the room first and go downstairs. Ana takes the stairs while we take the elevator. Everyone meets in the lobby because it's the most comfortable.