I hate the dentist.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I feel that I can properly rant about the bullshit that occurred this past Saturday.

Before I get into that, here is what happened last year:

Towards the end of March I knew I needed to make an appointment to see the dentist (it had been AGES since I had seen one). Having Denti-Cal, it makes it really hard to find somebody who is accepting new patients with that insurance. I don’t feel like going to the ghetto nor do I feel like going to some shady place.

Since my Mom has the same dental insurance that I do, I gave her a call and she recommended one of the SmileCare locations she had been to. My Mom has a lot of health issues and unfortunately they took a toll on her teeth. They became really brittle and started to break. Nothing could have been done to preserve them so back in 2003, at the age of 42, she had to have every single one of them removed. It was really hard on her but I distinctly remember her loving her dentist. She said that he was incredibly sweet, understanding, helpful, and that he did a good job. All of those qualities are something that I think all dentists should have, yet they don’t.

I trust my Mom’s judgment so I called them and was seen. The guy I had, Dr G. (an abbreviation of a very long and complicated last name), was hilarious. I had 9 cavities but was told that a good majority of them were little babies, except for 1. I trusted Dr G. when he told me that I could easily have some of them worked on without any numbing, so I did. I had 5 of them worked on and it was a breeze. The sound of the drill didn’t bother me, the pressure didn’t bother me, and he was nice enough to give me the white fillings instead of the metal.

With my anxiety, I knew that the sight of metal fillings would weird me out. Just seeing a permanent change done and with no way of getting rid of it really messes with me. With the white fillings, you see nothing. It looks as if nothing happened, which is just what I like.

After the 5 of them were done I was really light headed so I told him that I could no longer keep going for that day. He was sweet, understanding, and said no problem. Before I left I made an appointment for the following Saturday because I wanted to get it all done with as quickly as possible.

When I went back for my second visit Dr G. was nowhere in sight. The small, yet important to me, detail that him and another dentist switch Saturdays wasn’t told to me. I sat in the chair and all of a sudden this woman comes at me with the swab to numb my gums. I had no idea who she was, she didn’t say anything to me, didn’t introduce herself, and for all I know she could have been an assistant.

She was the dentist.

That immediately made me anxious because I didn’t trust this barbaric woman to get near me. I asked her if I could have a minute and I was very nice about it. Apparently she was on her rag because she answered me with a very bitchy answer, “Fine, I have other patients to attend to.”

I would have appreciated her asking if I was fine, if there was anything wrong, maybe some reassurance… but no. I get mega bitch.

That didn’t settle too well with me and about a minute later some lackey comes and tells me that if I want to make another appointment, I can. It was obvious that the dentist sent her in because she wanted to get rid of me. I said, “fine” and grabbed my things. Before I left I let the front desk know what the dentist did and that I wasn’t happy with it.

A week or two later I got a phone call from them saying how I still had work that needed to be done but I told them about the lady dentist and how I didn’t want to go back. Over the next few months, until July when I changed my phone and the phone number, I would get calls from them trying to get me to make an appointment but I never did.

That brings me to last week. I knew that I needed to get the other ones finished up, especially the big one. I had seen a picture of it and knew that there was no way in hell I could get that done without any Novocaine, but I was afraid of the Novocaine. I’m terribly afraid of needles so the thought of one going into my mouth just freaks me out. Also, I’m afraid of the numb feeling. I know that might seem strange but I’m afraid that when I have the numb feeling I will have a panic attack. It’s hard to explain but unless you who are reading this have had a panic attack, you won’t really understand and that’s fine.

Another thing that kept running through my head was that I had to get it done and taken care of before it turned into a root canal. I might be afraid of needles, but a root canal is like the end of the world for me. I know what happens during those and if I can avoid it, you bet your sweet ass I’m going to.

I knew I had to get in as soon as possible so I went and googled up local dentists who were taking my insurance. Going back to SmileCare wasn’t an option. Many were no longer accepting the insurance (surprise, surprise), many weren’t accepting any new patients with the insurance, many weren’t accepting any adults with the insurance, any many were only children dentists (something that would have been nice to know instead of them being listed as general).

I started to get very frustrated and even wanted to cry because my options were getting to be very limited and I had a gut feeling that I would end up at SmileCare.

Finally, after about 2 hours of calling around, I threw in the towel. I gave them a call and asked if Dr. G was still there. I was told that he was but he wouldn’t be in until the 16th due to him being on his honeymoon. I wasn’t going to hold that against him, and was actually really happy for him because he was a really nice guy. I asked who was working on Saturday and was told some ladies name. First time I did was ask if she was the same devil woman from a year ago. To my delight, I was told that it was a French lady who was really nice and funny.

Nice and funny.

I can deal with nice and funny.

I made the appointment for 1 so that I could have breakfast, have a chance to relax, and just have time to compose myself. Hell, I even took some ibuprofen to help with the inflammation.

At 12:55 I arrive at SmileCare. The lady at the front desk asks me if I have an appointment and I tell her that yes, I do. I give her my name and she pulls up my information. What came out of her mouth pissed me off:

“We no longer accept your insurance.”

Orly???

When I was on the phone making the stupid appointment the lady pulled up my account, and anybody who had the ability to see and read would have CLEARLY seen my insurance information.

Fucking peeved at this point I asked her since when. April 1st of last year was what she told me.

April 1st eh?

I was there in April of last year!!!

I got phone calls for months asking me to return and my insurance information would have came up with my contact information!!!

I asked if there was a supervisor available and, of course, there wasn’t. I wasted 3 business days waiting for that appointment. 3 business days that I could have used making phone calls to find a new dentist.

I fucking hate SmileCare. I fucking hate my insurance. I fucking hate the fact that when I get this god awful tooth worked on that it will be with some random stranger and that I will have to trust them.

I also fucking hate that I can only see the dentist on a Saturday due to Chris and I having 1 car. That limits where I can go and since I need to get in as soon as possible, I will probably go in this Saturday which is my Mom’s birthday.

I won’t have the time now to make a great lunch for her like I planned. I won’t get to EAT a lunch….well, I guess Cream of Wheat technically counts as food, but that’s besides the point

*sigh*

I hate the dentist….

- She Who Has The Last Word

I mentioned in the blogs yesterday that Saturday was pretty eventful – in both good and bad ways.

Chris and I woke up a little bit before 10 and started off our day being bums. While he was out taking Donnie for a walk I made a phone call to make an appointment to get my hair cut. I know this might not sound exciting but I haven’t had it cut, or even trimmed, since November 2007. I was way overdue. The last time I did get it cut I got lightheaded in the ladys chair because I was nervous.

I have problems with anxiety so my mind loves screwing with me on a regular basis. Getting my haircut is a recent development. I used to not have a problem before but now I do.

After booking the appointment, which was for 3:30, I started making lunch for the two of us. I started to cook some strips of chicken breast in a pan. Right when they were almost done I noticed that I didn’t hear any sizzles coming from the pan. I cranked up the heat, added some more olive oil, and still heard nothing. At that point I assumed that the burner had gone out, which was correct, so I then put the pan on another burner because the chicken needed to be finished.

I then put that burner at almost high heat and waited a couple of minutes. Nothing happened. I was able to touch the burner with my bare hands and obviously my hands are fine because I am able to type this blog.

We were having company come over later on that evening for dinner and I was getting a bit freaked out that I wouldn’t be able to cook anything so I placed a call to our apartment maintenance man. While on the phone with him he had me check to see if maybe the fuse blew and everything looked perfectly fine. While I was in the shower he came and had to turn the connection off and will have to wait until Monday to come and fix it.

Apparently Donnie was going ape shit when the maintenance guy came over and Chris had to spend the entire time holding him back. Oh what a fierce protector!

After that we went to get my hair cut and nothing eventful happened there. When you really think about it, there is nothing too terribly exciting about somebody putting scissors next to your head and cutting something that is dead. There was this one guy who was there getting his hair trimmed and he was a total ass. Chris couldn’t even stand the guy. He was bragging about how he just got a ticket on the way there for speeding and how he has so many tickets. He claimed to have about 12 of them and I personally feel that he was full of shit. If he honestly had that many tickets his license would have been suspended, easily.

Chris and I were worried about dinner because our friends who were coming over were bringing pasta but you can’t really have a proper dinner with just pasta. My original plan was to make homemade meatballs, a salad, and then I was going to bake either cookies or a cake. With no oven or stoke I couldn’t very well accomplish those things so we headed off to Costco.

None of their pre-made entrees caught our eyes so we just got stuff for a salad and left. We then made a short stop at Vons to grab something for dessert and a freshly baked loaf of French bread.

Since we are still addicted to our Wii our apartment was a bit messy. While I was preparing what little food we could make, Chris was busy cleaning things up.

Our friends were supposed to get to our place at 7 and when 7 came around we were good to go. A little while later we looked at the clock and I saw that it was 7:20. Ok…. well maybe there is traffic. Instead of us standing around looking like a couple of goons, we turned on the Wii and played a little bit of Animal Crossing.

It was a few minutes before 8 when they finally showed up and I was starved by that point. The table was all set up and ready to go so we got right to business – stuffing our faces.

Recently my stomach has been pretty sensitive due to me having acid reflux so when I saw the pasta I knew that it would fuck my world up. I didn’t want to be rude so I had a little bit, and by a little bit I mean like 7 pieces. Even Chris said that it was a bit strong because as he was eating it, it started to burn the back of his throat and he has a cast iron stomach.

After dinner we had some dessert, talked a little bit, and then around 10:30 they left. Chris and I finally got into bed around 12:30 and fell asleep to the Food Network like we always do.

I typically set a sleep timer for 60 minutes but last night I set it to 80.

About 40 minutes into my sleep I was woken up by a horrible pain in my stomach and I knew what it was. A couple of times my stomach has acted up like that and it landed me in the emergency room. I was determined not to go there and to just tough it out. i stayed on my right side until I couldn’t take it anymore. From there I propped myself up on my pillows and just tried to force myself back to sleep.

Since my body loves me oh so much I got to enjoy not just the stomach pains but a migraine as well. After wanting to just die for about a half hour the pain in my stomach started to lessen but then I started to feel myself get lightheaded. 15 minutes later I shifted over to my right side and a little bit after that I knew I was going to get sick.

When I was sick about a month ago Chris put a large white plastic bowl next to my side of the bed. Being the tidy people that we are, the same bowl was there last night. On my way to the bathroom I grabbed the bowl because I didn’t want to puke all over myself while going pee. (I know, you can thank me for the graphic mental images later.)

So I sat on the porcelain god doing my business when all of a sudden I felt my stomach constrict. Totally glad that I had the bowl because I couldn’t stop myself from throwing up. The bowl was massive and I filled almost 1/4 of it. Since a majority of it was straight stomach acid it burned like a mother fucker coming up and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for myself. Poor Chris heard me start to heave and he threw the covers off of him and raced into the bathroom to make sure I was fine.

After everything was OK and I knew that it was going to be all quiet on the Western front, we went back to bed only to hear our sorry excuse of a neighbor. If it wasn’t for the fact that I felt like somebody had beaten me with a baseball bat I would have gone over there and told them to knock it the hell off or I was going to call the cops. I was so over it at that point.

Thankfully I was able to fall back asleep and when I woke up this morning I was so, so, so sore throughout my entire abdominal region. Chris and I were going to try and meet Melyssa around 11ish at the local museum but that wasn’t an option this morning so, sorry Melyssa! Maybe next time?

Well now I am going to continue being a bum on the couch and get grumbled at by Donnie because I won’t let him on top of my chest or lap.

Hope you all have a great rest of the weekend!

- She Who Has The Last Word