Smile and Give Me All Your Money

So, today I actioned item number #4352 on the Great Long List of Things That Other Grown-Ups Do Without Having To Be Told, And If I Ever Want To Be One Of Their Number, I Should Really Get Onto It: I went to the dentist.

I shan’t be confessing here just how many years (that’s years in the significant plural) it has been since I last took a positive step to protect my oral health. Suffice it to say that it appals me enough, it would appal my mother even more. (And let me assure you, this blog appals her more than adequately already: “jLo, dear, why don’t you tell some nice stories instead of just writing post after post about how sick or hung over you are?” “Sure thing, Mum.” “And while you’re at it, get some decent jokes, why don’t you? And learn to write proper sentences.” “OKAY, Ma. Geez.”)

Where was I? Anyway, it’s been some time. Of all the places to break the dentist drought, I pick England, a nation renowned for the quality of its citizen’s teeth. I elected to eschew my reciprocal right as an Australian to treatment under the beleaguered National Health System (although aren’t you impressed that dental work is covered here?) and booked myself in as a privately paying patient for a check up and a long-overdue clean. I was hopeful that I still had teeth in there somewhere, lurking beneath the years of accumulated crap.

People had warned me about the dentists in the UK. In fact, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks (ever since the day my gums hurt and I got panicky about how long it’s been since my last appointment) revelling in the dentist horror stories of everyone I know in London. The overwhelming consensus from the anecdotes I have collected is that the NHS dentists won’t bother fixing anything and the private dentists will inevitably insist upon such a large bundle of essential (and coincidentally very expensive) treatments that you’ll wonder how you’ve been managing to chew your food and smile without scaring small children all this time.

Armed with my trusty stereotyped prejudices, therefore, I fronted the surgery this morning determined to resist the hard sell. My dentist was a very friendly lady who complimented me on my teeth.

“Nice teeth!”
“Uh, thanks”.

It was an underwhelming and somewhat uncomfortable experience, which I had expected. I did not expect, however, that the door to the examination room would be open, so that folks walking through the hallway could watch me flailing madly as strange, sharp implements were poked inquisitively into my gums.

They also got a fabulous view of the moment I nearly drowned: the dentist’s assistant seemed a tad preoccupied and was apparently unable to aim her little vacuum thingy anywhere near where it was required. I had to call a halt to proceedings at one point with a strangled yelp so that I could sit up to cough and splutter in a most dignified and graceful fashion.

I was also given a lesson in the proper way to brush my teeth – apparently I’ve been doing it wrong all this time. The dentist handed me a toothbrush and a model mouth and demonstrated a fun flicky motion that I was quite taken by. Glad to no longer have a mouthful of icky polishing paste and a fear of choking as the blissfully inattentive assistant failed in her suctioning responsibilities; I got quite into the practising and sat contentedly for some moments, flicking away at the fake teeth, lost in my own little world.

The dentist had to wrench them away from me, with a gentle but firm “that’ll do now”. I felt approximately two years old.

I have always been very proud of my record at the dentist: no fillings, no braces, no nasty procedures of any kind whatsoever. My secret fear, however, was that one day my clear run would end and I would know that I only have myself to blame, given the cavalier disregard I have demonstrated in recent years.

Today, those fears were realised. Apparently, for the first time in my life, I have cavities. Not big ones, not serious – a couple of wee little cavities that require filling for what I am told is primarily a precautionary purpose. I am disappointed.

To complicate matters, however, I’m also not sure whether to take it seriously or what to do next. The requirement for fillings was mentioned in almost the same breath as a necessity for several x-rays and a recommendation for an extremely expensive whitening treatment. My nostrils prickled at the smell of a sales pitch: the kind where they give you a long and exorbitant list in the in the safe knowledge that you will feel that you have to agree to at least the most basic item. It was slickly done, I was impressed. She looked in my mouth, counted my teeth, then sat down and wrote me a price list.

Since when did taking care of one’s health become an exercise in cynical consumerism? How much of my scepticism is based on the horror stories I had been told? Do I get a second opinion? Am I overthinking this? Will I get to play with the model mouth again? They’re only fillings, goddammit, just get them done already.

I suspect that the idea of losing my record is a disproportionately large factor here: it seems likely that I’m resisting necessary treatment out of stupid pride. And thus, I present another indication that adulthood eludes me yet: that I will consider not getting fillings just because I want to be able to continue to say that I don’t have any.

(Also, I am scared of the drilling).