A nasty experience!

I was dreading this morning because Sophie and I had a dentist appointment - the first for me in eight years, which I can hardly believe! How had it been so long? It didn't help that my lovely dentist, Mr Robertson, had retired in 2016 (or maybe 2017?), and I hated his replacement, who gave me my first ever filling. I refused to go back to him, and then covid struck. We hadn't been able to register with an NHS dentist, so we've had to take out a dental plan and go private.

Not only was I dreading the dentist, but I was also worried that there was something seriously wrong with my teeth. Every morning in Mallorca, I would wake up and feel like someone had taken out all my teeth and rearranged them. It was horrible, and I must have been grinding my teeth while asleep. Luckily, that has stopped, but it didn't prevent me from absolutely dreading our appointment.

We left early and managed to park right outside the surgery, which was a bonus. Waiting to go in was horrible, and I wished that the whole experience was over and I could go to work and be normal! We were both able to go together, and the dentist seemed lovely and chatty, and his nurse was friendly and caring. I went first and lay in the chair, feeling tense and scared!

He had a good look first and poked about and then, without warning, stuck a plate on one side of my mouth to take an X-ray. I was not expecting that! Everyone had to leave the room, and when he came back in, he stuck it in the other side of my mouth. This made me gag, and I honestly didn't think I could go through with it again, but I had to!

Then he said that, miraculously, everything was fine with my teeth, but they needed a good clean. I knew they did! He said he could do it right away, but I was reluctant as I hadn't expected that and needed to psyche myself up! Even when I used to go regularly, I hated it! However, Sophie was keen to have her teeth cleaned, so I reluctantly agreed. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had! Cleaning away eight years of plaque was a long job, and I gripped the side of the chair and kept whimpering as they both worked away in my mouth. I kept gagging at the excess water, and it was dripping down my chin and all over my top. When I was eventually released and could rinse my mouth, I spat out pure blood. Horrible!

Sophie was watching all this with amusement and asked how bad it was on a scale of 1-10. I answered 12, but she didn't believe me! She did, though, when she went through it all herself! I had to sit and watch her go through the same process, and her teeth were fine as well after the X-rays. That was a relief! She asked for a stress ball, but they didn't have one, and there wasn't even any relaxing music playing in the background!

Before we escaped, we made an appointment for December, and then I drove us to Northampton. I arrived at work at 10.30am, so I needed to make that time up after my usual hours. As the day wore on, my teeth started to hurt, and I had a horrible metallic taste in my mouth. I kept shuddering thinking about it!

Sophie picked me up at 5pm, and we went home to relax, listening to the soothing sounds of Henry Mancini until we had dinner. At least we'd gone through the same horrible experience together,  but Keith sympathised as well as he'd been to the hygienist recently and hadn't enjoyed it, either!