The wisdom to know my limitations

A dull toothache forced me to make an appointment outside my regular check-up.

THE TIME IS TOOTH-HURTY: Going the the dentist affects different people in different ways. Picture: LuckyBusiness

GOING to the dentist has never worried me.

Just like getting a blood test or a flu jab, I figure if I don't look and also try to concentrate on something else in the room or a happy memory, the job is over in no time. The needle numbs the pain and I pretend the noise of the drill is coming from a construction site next door.

But that all changed this week. I found myself in the standard almost-horizontal position in a dentist's chair with heart pounding and a slight shake.

A dull toothache had forced me to make an appointment outside my regular check-up.

The source of the ache was discovered, through an x-ray, to be a huge hole in a wisdom tooth.

Who knew I had enough wisdom to have wisdom teeth? I'd never felt them come through (turns out only a couple did) and it's taken ... well, let's just say many decades for one to make its presence felt.

I thought I was up for yet another filling (or two?). But when extraction seemed to be A) an immediate end to the pain and B) the cheapest course of action, common sense prevailed but anxiety set in. I hadn't had a tooth pulled out since I was a kid.

My Scottish-born dentist "Dr Leanne”, with her calm and friendly chairside manner, tried to allay my fears as she fulfilled her obligations to outline what could possibly go wrong. That made things worse.

As it turned out, of course I had nothing to worry about.

But I do have a new-found respect for all the dentists of the world. What rotten luck to have to deal with anxious patients, and those with bad breath, diseased gums and bad teeth, day in and day out.

You couldn't pay me enough to do that job.

Originally published as The wisdom to know my limitations