Anger Management

For those of you who know me, this phrase is a touchstone of mine.  I've been told that I have issues and I'm actually beginning to agree.

Yesterday, I went to the dentist for my twice yearly checkup and cleaning.  Now, for the record, I don't like dentists but I go and get my ticket punched like a good little girl.  I got the whole array of x-rays and the added fun of being put 'into the system' since the dentist had converted to computer based files since my last visit two years ago.

For the past two years, I saw a dentist in Oceanside, CA.  While I was there, I started having sensitivity in two cracked teeth.  I ended up getting two root canals and three caps/crowns.  This was a pricey endeavor.  It cost more than most of the vehicles I've purchased in my life.  Who knew that dental costs could be so exorbitant?  Not me, I've had good teeth and little work so far.  But, back to the present.

When the dental hygienist put my x-rays up on the light box and began making her notes into the new computer system, she was appalled at how my caps/crowns were fitted.  Seems like this dentist in CA, we'll call him "incompetent" had trouble fitting the crowns into my teeth.  So instead of carving down the side of the porcelain crowns, he carved out the enamel on the good teeth next to them.

She exclaimed and gestured at the x-rays and used a pen to show me all the damage that guy had done to my good teeth trying to fit in the new crowns.  At this point, my exclamation (aloud in the office, with an open door) included foul language about the amount of money I paid for my incompetent dentist to damage my good teeth.

And there the back pedaling began.  She quit commenting on my teeth and when the dentist came in to check me over and look at my x-rays, he went no farther than saying he wished I had asked him for a recommendation because a guy he went through dental school with ended up in practice in San Diego.

Professional decorum reigned supreme.  No one else commented about that shoddy workmanship that now fills my mouth.  When I asked the dentist if anything needed to be done, he could only recommend that I become the worlds best flosser to protect my teeth, because there is half as much enamel there between those crowns and the teeth beside them as there should be.

As I left the office, I considered my options:  1) write a tersely worded memo berating the dentist; 2) hire a hit man; 3) floss like a demon and hope for only good luck.  I still have to ask the dentist in CA to ship my records to my dentist in Tulsa, but the prospect of penning a letter that does not include some kind of diatribe eludes me.  I am so angry.  When I'm angry, I clench my teeth.  When I clench my teeth, I crack my molars.  When I crack my molars I have to have them fixed.  It's a vicious cycle.

Possibly I need to take up zen-like breathing exercises.  Or start drinking, I hear drunks are pretty relaxed.  I need something to take my mind off my teeth.  And the money I wasted on them.

--Sandee Wagner