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2001-08-17 | 12:10 p.m.

Yesterday I went to the dentist to get a filling and ended up walking out in the middle of the procedure. I've gotten through fillings before, but I've had so much dental work done lately that I didn't have time to forget enough in between. So why did I leave? I was in a rotten mood to begin with, and I had a throbbing headache. When I laid down in the chair and the dental assistant lowered my head below my ankles, at first I thought Oh, this might be good for adjusting my back a bit but then immediately I felt like I couldn't breathe properly. Maybe I was hyperventilating, I don't know. I think I have a deviated septum from all those years of bad behavior, because I can no longer breathe properly through my nose when swimming freestyle. It's very frustrating. It's also possible that I'm full of shit.

I told the dental assistant I felt lightheaded, which was not entirely true, but I jumped out of the chair and stood against the wall for a minute. I placed my fingertips against my forehead melodramatically, in a pantomime of lightheadedness, but really I was just trying to figure out what to do next. It seemed like I could either remain standing and breathe or get back in the chair and suffocate and die. But it also seemed as if there was nothing else to do but sit back down. So I sat and in came the dentist.

I had never dealt much with this dentist before and I found him to be a man of few words. He was already irritated to see that I was deviating from the program and though he didn't say anything about it, I was aware of his disdain and it made me feel a little ashamed. After I sat down, he got right to work. When he drew the needle across my sightline, I had a long moment to savor its terrible length and breadth. The thing looks more like a ballpoint pen cartridge than a needle. I think it was made of brass. It was much thicker than any medicinal needle has any right to be. There are fucking crochet hooks thinner than this thing. Then he pushes it into my mouth and uses it to breach the tenderest part of my face, my inner cheek, which has never done anything to deserve this sort of torture, and I feel the needle driving through me, feeling like it has gone so far through my jaw that it is now coming out the other side of my head, or maybe through my inner ear, and it hurts like a MOTHERFUCKER, at which point it grounds out in the sand of my cellular ocean and stops, definitely touching something, which hurts twelve times worse---a pain that grows exponentially with each microsecond that he holds it there, with tremendous and unconscionable pressure. Simultaneously the needle tool somehow brushes against the surface of my tongue and I feel what I swear is an electrical charge. Is that possible? My body bucks once and I yelp with pain, try to tell him No, stop and make a pretty clear go of it despite having his fist in my mouth. But he ignores me, of course, because he is a dentist and that's what dentists do.

When I realized that he was not going to take the needle out of my face and the pain was not stopping or even slowing down (like when you give blood, which is what I had tried to convince myself it would be like), I started to cry. I couldn't help myself. I closed my eyes to shut out the pair of them, though I couldn't see them anyway. They said not a word, and I was sure that above me, over my head, they were rolling their eyes at each other over my pathetic antics. This bothered me enormously. They thought I was being a coward, and I thought I was being tortured, and they win this debate because they do this sort of thing all day every day and they've seen other people sit through it just fine.

Finally the dentist removes the needle, which takes forever, and hurts dreadfully even as he draws my injured cheek up with it, tugging, and as it crosses my tongue on the way out, again it zaps me cruelly, which I'm sure the dentist would deny outright, but damn it I know what I felt! It doesn't feel right at all. It reminds me of the times I've had to get a pap smear and the gynecologist accidentally pinches a small piece of my flesh while turning the screw to widen the forceps. Yow!

Finally, the needle is out. The three of us sit silently. I continue to cry, because I am hurt and angry that it has to hurt so much and because the dentist and his assistant think I am a big baby. It crosses my mind that I could tell them I had a natural childbirth with my son, but I don't have the heart for it. They wouldn't be impressed anyway; neither of them ever having gone through childbirth. My heart is thumping in my chest wildly and it occurs to me that I could have a heart attack or a stroke right there in the dentist's chair. I've heard about things like that happening. And if I did die, would anybody care? Hell no! People would say, "Oh, that's too bad, how sad" and get on with their day. It would just be one of those things that happens. Unfortunate, but unavoidable. The dentist and his assistant continue to say nothing. This bothers me so much. I assume it means that they think I am too weird to talk to. If I were normal, they would talk to me, but that is not an option with a hypochondriac like myself. So I am alone. My mind is swarming with outrageous, illogical thoughts. I feel unloved, unliked; I have been hurt and no one will speak to me, and if I die---I can't stop thinking about if I die---no one will care. I know that it is unlikely that I will die in the dentist's chair but it is not impossible, especially when I am being electrocuted by the antique dental equipment, and the dentist won't care one whit that I am dead.

"Is that lip getting numb?" the dentist says.

"Yes," I say.

"I'm going to have to come in with another one now," he says. I look at him and he is poised and waiting expectantly, with his brass ballpoint pen cocked at a jaunty angle, ready for another go. I am so horrified that I become incredibly efficient.

"I don't want the tooth filled," I say briskly, lunging out of the chair. I grab my purse. I stare at the floor.

"You don't want your tooth filled," the dentist says slowly, with the slightest hint of a sneer.

"No, I don't. Thank you. I will pay for whatever."

I walk out. The receptionist rushes up to me. "Are you okay? Do you want me to call your ride?"

"No," I say. Does she really think that I have someone somewhere waiting for my call? I want to laugh. I want to scream, I am IT, lady. I am all I get. I am everybody else's ride.

I stand at the counter for a moment, holding the straps of my purse, waiting to pay. No one asks me for any money, though. No one says anything to me, and I am the only patient in the office, so I leave.

Outside, I begin to sob on the way to the car. Still not sure why I am so upset, but I am. And my headache is worse than throbbing now, it is an angry monkey in a cage. I sit in the car for a long time, because I can't drive. I can't drive, and I can't understand why I am so upset. Why do I let myself get so upset? For dentistry worldwide, it was a routine procedure. So why I do I end up like this? But I don't even care. I am still licking my wounds and smoothing my fur. My mouth is slack and dry. I can't feel anything, and I feel too much.

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