Expensive Smile

Next time when you see me and are lucky enough to receive a stretch of my lips with a generous show of my dentures, please keep in mind that you have been the recepient of a very expensive smile. The fact that a basically good intention has resulted in such an expensive smile makes it even more precious and rare. In my last entry, I had spoken about my teethache and I kept wondering how I could have so many rotten teeth. A visit to a dentist told me that I was definitely on the way to keeping up my family tradition.

It was on Wednesday that I finally forced myself to go see a dentist. I took off from work and Ranji did too. Having been subjected to great torture the last time round, we decided to go to Chinmaya Mission Hospital. At the registration counter, I realized the dentist was going to be a "mallu", but it was only when I entered the examination room that I realized that that "mallu" was a rather glamorous lady. This person had the kind of unisex name which "mallus" specialize in which makes it rather difficult to guess the gender. I knew then itself that it wasn't going to be as big a torture as the last time.

It took the dentist only a couple of minutes to tell me that I had around 20 teeth with cavities. Twenty teeth!!! I just couldn't believe it. I mean, that was almost two-thirds of my mouth. Rather tentatively, I asked her what the cause was. She said it was because I was brushing my teeth. That stumped me. Weren't we supposed to do that? Wasn't it part of the dental hygiene? I asked her as much. She assured me that brushing teeth was fine so long as one remembered that you had a toothbrush and that it was being used upon teeth and not a washing brush that you use upon clothes. She was pretty confident that excessive use of force while brushing of teeth was the cause of my predicament. My mind whispered an old Malayalam proverb in my ear - adhikamaayaal amruthum visham (even nectar in excessive amount is a poison).

I was directed to the hospital lab for a dental x-ray. The x-ray added to my woes, both personal and economical, by showing up a tooth in such a bad condition that even an untrained person like me knew that a root canal surgery was required. Why all these expenses come mostly in March (a month where my company and my government join hands in stealing my money in the name of taxes) or when I and Ranji decide to save up something extra, or both, I do not know. Not having carried enough cash - after all, I wasn't expecting 20 teeth with cavities - I had to pay up using my credit card.

After the assurance that this guy with 20 cavity-filled teeth had indeed made the payment, the doctor directed me to THE chair. In that instant, I very nearly understood what a prisoner in Texas would feel while heading towards the electric chair, a kind of resignation to the torture you are going to be subjected to. As I have told earlier, it could be a low threshold of pain or the fear at seeing those dangerous instruments or a combination of both, I am just extremely scary about any dental procedure. Within seconds, I knew this wasn't going to be any different. The excessive amounts of assurance given by the doctor only helped in stiffening my body up even more.

She started off by tapping around most of the teeth and setting the tone for the pain. That was followed by cleaning of the cavities (or so I think as I wasn't able to see) with some high-pressure liquid. That made the already sensitive cavities even more so and I had to hold on hard to the arm rests from squirming. This was followed by filling up, but she was soon exhausted. She probably didn't realize that she was looking at, if not a Guinness Record candidate, at least a Limca Book of Records candidate. Due to her lack of occasion, I have missed a definite chance to be in the record books.

After filling around 11 of them, she directed her attention towards the root canal procedure. There was this drill which was pressed into action and applied at all the wrong spots around the errant tooth. Every 10 seconds or so, I would shoot up from the chair, unable to stand the pain any longer. After administering third dose of anesthetic on me, as if to soothe my nerves and give me some courage, she said that most people needed only one shot of the anesthetic and that it shouldn't pain so much because she was just drilling around the enamel where there were no nerves. I felt like telling her that the only reason I was allowing my mouth to be so cruelly raped was because she was attractive and even that wouldn't stop me from biting on her hand if she put that drill one more time on the rotten point. I don't know whether she read my mind or not, but she said that the problem area had been reached and that it was going to be better. She put some packing cement on it and asked me to come two days later.

I presented at her clinic two days. This time, though, things were much smoother. She drilled around the problem tooth a bit more and took a cast of my full set of teeth. Sitting in her clinic, it made a handsome pair, I must say. Don't get ideas folks, I am talking about the casts of my upper and lower set of teeth. I am supposed to have at least another couple of sitting before my teeth can get to its earlier glory.

A simple thing like brushing your teeth, albeit excessively, has cost me upwards of Rs. 10,000/- so far and it isn't over yet. After this current nightmare, I have even thought of giving up brushing teeth altogether. Thankfully, one of my team members dissuaded me from doing that. Well, not directly, but his bad breath is cruel reminder to me about the lack of brushing. Anyway, I have learnt my lessons. I brush my teeth very gently now, has given up on chewing gum, and am not smiling much, lest the stretch of my lips over the teeth result in further eroding of my enamel. I have learnt yet another lesson in life; I just wish it hadn't been such an expensive one.