The Dentist’s Waiting Room

I had a dental appointment today, and I must confess that I was a bit anxious about it. My anxiety can probably be traced back to an incident in my childhood in which I had a tooth extracted but, for whatever reason, the anaesthetic applied did not actually work properly.

Cue screaming, horrible, horrible screaming, followed by my father pretty much kicking the door open demanding to know what was happening (go dad!). Funnily enough, we stopped going to that particular dentist soon after. I can’t help but wonder why.

As an aside, my next tooth extraction (roughly a decade later) went much better. Due to the number of teeth they had to extract and the position they were in (this was prior to getting braces), they decided to put me under general anaesthetic. It was great. I went in, they knocked me out, and I woke up none the wiser. Well, not exactly. I did wake up with my mouth full of blood, but, hey, that’s not nearly as bad as what happened the first time.

My anxiety has definitely decreased over the years, mostly due to my family having found an extremely excellent dentist. I’m not exaggerating when I say that he is, far and away, the best dentist I’ve ever visited. He is quick, efficient, friendly, and he makes everything as painless as possible. He is also marvellous at understanding what people are saying when they have dental equipment in their mouths, so it’s actually possible to have a conversation with him while he is working. Yes, he is that awesome.

Anyway, I had my yearly dental check up today. Now, some people like to put going to the dentist off, but I’m firmly of the opinion that you want to get ahead of dental problems. Preventative maintenance is not only cheaper but also less painful than waiting for things to go horribly wrong.

To allay any concerns you might have, I was fine. He had a look around, did some cleaning and general maintenance, and sent me on my way with a few words of advice regarding particular problem areas. This is because, due to several vagaries of dental geometry, some parts of my teeth are very difficult to get at effectively with a toothbrush. Now, despite that description, you can rest assured that I am not, in fact, some kind of nightmare creature with daggers for teeth.

So, to get back to the topic at hand, I was waiting in the dentist’s waiting room with two other people. I was feeling a little bit anxious, but the two other people there looked much more anxious than me. It did not take me long to understand why.

One of them, an elderly woman with a cane, was called for her appointment with the dentist. The dental technician came over to help her get up and asked the old woman if she was okay. Her response, delivered with a trembling voice and a touch of bitterness was quite stark.

“No, I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay in four years. If it’s not my arm, it’s something else. Something is always going wrong.”

That definitely caught my attention. A bit more listening in (I admit to being a stickybeak with a good sense of hearing) revealed that the old woman had broken her arm not long ago, which was only one of several injuries and mishaps she’d had fairly recently. She also seemed to have great difficult walking, even with the help of a cane, and it was clear as well that one of her arms had very little strength. Indeed, I ended up opening the door for her when she was leaving because she lacked the strength to move it more than an inch or two despite claiming she didn’t need any help. Still, I’d rather she was angry at me for helping than she hurt herself in the attempt.

The other person in the waiting room was an old man. Over the course of the wait, I learned that he was the husband of one of the patients who was with the dentist. On the outside, he appeared fairly relaxed, but when I looked at his hands, it became clearer that he was anxious.

He was holding his wife’s handbag and clutching at it very tightly indeed. Several times the dental technician came out to ask him questions about his wife’s medication since they wanted to give her painkillers to make the treatment less unpleasant. Each time, he clutched that handbag tighter and tighter, and his responses became less fluid.

On the final occasion, he was clearly stumbling over his words because of how anxious and worried he was about his wife (they were both quite elderly), but to the dental technician’s credit, she never lost her patience and she did her best to calm him down and reassure him that they were simply being cautious and that everything was going fine.

As you can imagine, he looked incredibly relieved when his wife emerged from the dentist looking perfectly fine. As the pair left, the receptionist and I exchanged a look.

“We should all be so lucky,” the receptionist said, looking over at the old couple.

I had to agree.

As for me, my appointment was somewhat less eventful. I was worried that I might have a cavity, but the dentist didn’t find anything unusual going on in my mouth. He did some routine maintenance, we talked about various subjects, and I was on my way.

All things considered, it was a good dental appointment, but I’m glad to have gotten through it. Next time you’re in a dentist’s waiting room, take a look around and listen. You’ll be amazed by what you notice.