Yesterday I was getting my drill on. Dentist was drilling out a filling but first he had to inject me with an anesthetic.
I fucking hate needles. Anything that goes into my body for the purpose of drawing blood freaks me the fuck out. I've survived bungee jumps, car accidents, a cracked skull, some MMA training, and even a couple of toothy blow jobs. Needles, however, make me cower away from the instrument of torture. Kind of like a wounded kitten. Albeit a fat, thirty-seven year old wounded kitten.
But over the years, as I started going to the doctor without my Mother (read: STD clinics during my twenties) I overcame my fear of needles. I mean, it's apparent to anyone in the phlebotomy field that I don't like needles. I still lose a few shades of fake tan in my face whenever I sit in a chair anticipating a needle poke. However, I'm functional.
"I hit a bullseye."
So I'm laying in the dentist's chair: sunglasses on, eyes closed, white knuckling the chair's arms.The needle goes in with the sensation of the pinch I was forewarned about. Then something weird happened. An electric shock went through my jaw and tongue. It was like sticking my tongue on a battery except I was sober when it happened.
And then he immediately says something like "did I shock you?" And I genuinely thought, since he described the sensation accurately, that I had in fact been shocked by something. Was he using an electric syringe with a frayed extension cord plugged into an outlet partially submerged in water? This is truly what I imagined had happened. My imagination has never been a substitute for a thoughfully crafted question:
"What the fuck was that?" I inquired.
"I hit a bullseye" the doctor explained. Essentially, while trying to inject anesthesia near the nerve, he got a little too close and hit the actual nerve. Something that happens all of the time and I really quit telling this story to anyone because everyone I spoke to had a far more sympathy evoking story than mine. My Mom's, for example, involved an injection into her back prior to a spinal tap to determine if she had meningitis (which she did).
Anyway, the procedure proceeded once I calmed down from a mini anxiety attack. I'm such a pussy.
So instead of telling anyone else about this, I'm posting it here. Peace.
goochout.
Gooch, have you ever had a dental dam used on you?
Once, but he told me he loved me.
