Teeth

[bluelander]

Content warning: while it's nothing graphic, this post dicusses trauma related to dental health, parental abuse and poverty.

It's after work and I'm in the emergency room. I'll try to speak honestly without self-deprecation. I went because my teeth are a disaster. I was in this position several months ago. They gave me strong NSAIDs and antibiotics, and I was better in a few days. I'm hoping that'll be the case again. It won't fix the problem, but it'll get me functional enough to get there eventually.

I could blame myself for my teeth, but I've done that my whole life and it hasn't helped. I didn't take care of them, but also we're all products of our circumstances, and I wasn't given a chance to take care of them. The story of my teeth is one of many traumas, ranging from early childhood to recent middle adulthood. One of the traumatizers was the US healthcare system, such as it is, which did not think poor children deserving of dental care when I was a poor child. The system made sure I could only get help in dark basements of schools where dental students practice their trade on living specimens. A place where the screams of the other children and the whirring of drills echoing through the cold tile halls scarred me before I could even open my mouth. Their hands in my mouth were shaky and uncertain; my imagination provided vivid previews of all gruesome outcomes should their hands should slip with one of their medieval torture devices in my mouth. The air was thick with the scent of what was probably fluoride, but in my anxious imagination I'll always think of as tooth dust.

At home, two notable incidents of parental violence occurred around and related to bedtime dental hygiene, so that instilled an anxious and avoidant attitude towards basic dental care that persists to this day.

Most recently, I had some problematic teeth removed, and the person doing the removal didn't use enough anesthetic, and didn't stop when I started screaming. So now I have a debilitating phobia of the place I need to go to get the problem fixed.

The emergency room is a sensory nightmare, it's a cacophony of unwelcome televisions and grumbling patients and announcements and general susurus, and I can't wear headphones because I have to listen for my name to be called, but at least I know I don't have to lie back and have a light shined in my face and hear drills whining and let some potential sociopath put their fingers in my mouth. I can get the drugs I need to make the pain go away for awhile. But it won't fix the problem and I'm going to have to figure out how to face the music if I want the problem to stop.

I don't have many of my original teeth left, and I'm probably going to lose those too. My head is swimming with anxieties, both on the surface and buried deep down. The terror of unbearable pain. The shame of my failure to take care of myself. The shame of the stigma. The internalized classism. The anger and resentment at the people and systems who caused me to become this way. The prospect of being unable to talk or eat for an unknown amount of time before I can get artificial teeth. The frustration of adapting to them. I can't do this and I also can't not.

...

It's now Tuesday. I was given a shot of toridol and a prescription for penicillin. 28 big pills, 4 per day for a week. I've taken two. They don't give anything for pain, not even naproxen. I have acetaminophen. The pain is still there but it's not dominating every thought.

The doctor was pretty brusque about telling me what I have to do, which made me feel bad and judged. I know what I have to do. But I get it. There's no way I can explain all this to him, and he has to assume I know nothing. We both wanted me out of there as fast as possible and he had to make sure he wasn't negligent in informing me. I just wish his demeanor was a bit more compassionate. But, you can't teach demeanor. I'm sure he's good at what he does.

Therapy was this morning. Only 30 minutes. I pretty much just talked about my teeth and the ER trip. The connection kept freezing and creating a delay that made it hard to communicate. It didn't do me a ton of good in the moment, but keeping my weekly appointments is important for momentum.

The one good thing I can say about all of this, and I'm going to cling to it like a security blanket, is that I got help as soon as I needed help. I didn't wait days or weeks until the pain was almost unbearable. I didn't let my anxiety stop me, I did the hard uncomfortable thing. I walked to the hospital after a hard day at work, filled out the slip, sat down and waited until somebody helped me, on my own, of my own volition, my spouse didn't have to talk me into it. It's not much, but when it comes to me and health stuff, that's a victory. And even small victories in aggregate lead to change. Writing this is expressing my commitment to change. No more hiding