I am ‘a big brave girl’.  I know this because my dentist told me this morning when I opted to have both my fillings done at the same time.

It may seem a little patronising, but I had reverted to being a small child, cowering in the corner of the waiting room when he came to get me and almost crying when I got as far as the chair.  (Ok, I wasn’t quite that bad but there wasn’t a nurse to hold my hand like the last time – which, incidentally, was around 2 years ago).

He gave me my injections and we had a slightly surreal conversation about when he used to play cricket with TTB (oh, the joys of living in Bumpkinsville).  He asked if my mouth felt numb.  I told him (in a very slurred way as I couldn’t move most of my mouth) that I was numb from my chin and up to and including my entire right nostril.  He told me that if I needed to tell him anything while he was drilling then I was to raise my hand.

Now, I’m thinking that if at dentist school they can teach students to understand what people say while they have 19 different pieces of metal and half a hand protruding from their mouth, they should inform them that when patients are scared and have regressed to their six year old self, instructions need to be explicit.  Really explicit.

In this case he should have specified that before raising my hand, I should open my eyes (obviously they were screwed up for the duration).  That way, I wouldn’t have punched him in the face.  And, had I not punched him in the face I wouldn’t have got the giggles, and then I wouldn’t have dribbled quite so much over his hand.  Luckily, he also saw the funny side (although a laughing dentist holding a drill is even more terrifying than a miserable dentist holding a drill…)

Still, I think maybe he won’t make the same mistake again.  And it turned out that I was a big brave girl and he was a big brave dentist…  :o)