mouth open

Yesterday I had three cavities filled. Yes, that is correct - three. Three is a lot at one time. I had my mouth open for an hour as my dentist numbed, novicaned, drilled, cleaned, and packed full my three teeth with white cavity filler.

I used to want to be a dentist.

I quickly changed my mind my freshman year of college when I hated my science classes more than anything else in the whole entire world.

I switched to communication.

Anyway, back to the dentist. It had been awhile since I had a cavity filled so naturally I was nervous. Luckily my dentist was extremely nice. She is really really nice and throughout the entire process kept explaining to me what she was doing inside my mouth - telling me what I was hearing or smelling - asking me to turn towards her - explaining that the drilling noise might get a little louder. She was nice, really nice.

Even though my entire lower face was completely numb it didn't stop my lip muscle from quivering from exhaustion. Keeping your mouth open for an hour is not easy.

Then at one point, during the drilling of the third and final cavity they had to stick this paper disk under my tongue to keep things dry. I started to gag, which is horrible and embarrassing. I dug deep from that point on, I just needed to get through this last one...so I closed my eyes as tears where uncontrollably rolling down my numb face and thought of everything that made me happy --- Jake, cookies, home, family, cake, etc. -- you know, the usual.

After it was all over they slowly raised the chair and I tried to say that last one was hard - because my tongue and face were numb it didn't come out that smooth but she got the picture.

She agreed and said I had done a good job.