The house where my dentist has his surgery is one of the older houses in the market town where I live in Switzerland, situated in a back street of the town and does give an air of old and historic. I know the house very well as I have been through some of the most memorable moments of my life there.
Not being the youngest any more, my teeth have got old with me and now and again a repair job has to be done. I had quite a large repair job about six years ago, will not go into the details about what it cost, but I think I could have easily gone on a Mediterranean cruise with the money and still had some change left. You can have a medical insurance for dental treatment in Switzerland, but it is so expensive, that it is not worth the while. After my "big job" I decided to go to the dentist every year as advised, which I did for 2-3 years (or was it only 2).
A couple of weeks ago I was enjoying some chocolate and as it did not contain any nuts I was suddenly wondering what the gritty pieces were I had in my mouth. I then discovered the side of a tooth had made itself independent and had been crushed to small pieces by my other teeth. Some years ago I would have been put into a panic situation trying to get an emergency appointment to see my dentist. However, it seems that as you get older, you have more patience. As this "accident" happened on a Saturday (they always seem to happen on a Saturday) I waited patiently until Monday and called the dentist for an appointment. This was a week before Easter, and to be quite honest I would not have minded waiting until after the Easter holidays. I decided that my toothly injury was not a matter of life or death and I could wait. My dentist's assistant was of another opinion and told me she could fit me in already on Tuesday. After a discussion I managed to push the appointment onto Wednesday.
Wednesday morning I drove into town from work and arrived at the surgery on time, knowing that dentists never keep their appointments on time, but keep the victim waiting to make sure he can keep his nerves alive until he sits in the chair. I remembered the waiting room so well. Various certificates and examination results are plastered on the walls showing how good my dentist is (and he really is good, that I must say). Some leaflets about how to keep your teeth for ever and pictures of teeth which could not be kept due to decay etc. I decided to read the daily newspaper whilst waiting to keep my mind off the negative aspects of visiting the dentist.
Eventually my time came and I was escorted to "the chair" by the assitant. I had to remove my glasses (I wondered why, after all it was my teeth that were being treated) and then the dentist entered and shook my hand like an old friend. "I havn't seen you for a long time Mrs. ...." were his words. Not wanting to be unpolite I said "Is it really so long?". His answer was "It was four years ago" and waved my dental history before my eyes, complete with x-rays and all the trimmings. Not wanting to waste any further time he put his foot on the pedal and in 2 seconds I was laying flat on the dentists chair with a blazing light before my eyes.
Why I do not know, but before the dentist actually starts treating the faulty tooth he has to poke around everywhere else first of all. Eventually he settled on the place where the piece of tooth had broken off and said it was just a piece of enamel which had broken. I then heard the sound of a drill rotating and before I had a chance to ask what we could do he was deeply concentrated in knocking away some more enamel from the tooth. I was surprised that I had not received a pain killing injection and was hoping it was not one of those days that everything had gone wrong for the dentist and he was trying to calm himself down on my teeth. It seemed that it was really only a repair job and in 15 minutes he had built up the lost enamel and said he was finished. I was sitting in the chair rinsing the remains of the treatment away. I then looked towards my dentist to ask him whether it might be a good idea to see if anything else had to be done, after all it had been 4 years since we had seen each other. His answer was "definitely, but I havn't got the time today" and then he called his assistant to book me in for three quarters of a hour a week later for a teeth cleaning session.
By the way have you ever seen a dentist after he has finished his work. If you are lucky he will still have the contraption fixed to his head, something like a skeleted version of a miner's helmet. Steel bands with special magnified glasses and lights fixed to them so that he can find his was into the dental zones and knows exactly where to aim the drill. I would have loved to have taken a photo for this blog, but I do not think he would have understood.
The week later was today. I just hate teeth cleaning sessions and he didn't disappoint me. When he was finished I felt like a vampire that had just fed on his victim. It seems that my dentist has really got to like me - he wants to see me again next week as he discovered a hole in one of my teeth which I did not know I had. The next appointment will be in a week's time. I think that when he is finished the hole in my tooth will be repaired and I can exchange it for a hole in my finances.
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