My living nightmare!

The dentist isn't a place that I normally get anxiety over, or have nightmares about, but after my experience today, that all might change! I had to go in for a filling and a crown. I've had both done in the past, so I'm thinking it's no big deal, I'll be home by 5. I was actually excited this time because the last dental work I had done, I was pregnant with Jayci, and then the time before that I was pregnant with Jack, so this time I got to have the laughing gas!

So I'm laying in the chair with my gas and numbing gel in place, movie playing, and feeling like my chair is a magic carpet. Life is good! After a while the dentist came in and asked how I was feeling and I think I actually giggled! (I wonder how it got it's name?!) But then he goes and sticks his huge needle in my gum and it all went downhill from there.

The moment he starts drilling, my whole body flinches because I'm not numb yet. So then came the second set of brutal shots, four of them, deep in my gum! He left me there for another long while to wait for me to get numb, and tries again with the same results. The third set of shots were so deep, I swear he was in my jaw bone! So he leaves me to sit there for a loooong time, my mouth full of blood, hoping I get numb this time. By the time he came back, my movie was nearly over and my mouth was so numb that I was drooling.

So he starts drilling again, and yes, I can still feel it, but not bad enough that I flinch uncontrollably. At this point though, I've had the gas for nearly 2 hours, and it starts to lose it's appeal. As he's working in my mouth, doing all the heavy duty drilling that's required with a crown, my mouth slowly begins to fill up with a nasty conglomerate of tooth debris, saliva, and water. (I think the assistant forgot she had the mouth sucker there in her hand.) Needless to say, I couldn't breath at all through my mouth, so i'm sucking straight gas through my nose with no relief. My head and body start to spin and I start blacking out and seeing stars, but because of the effects of the gas, I'm unable to think straight enough to do anything about it. I finally get to the point where I'm literally suffocating, and start to panic, but like I said, I couldn't think straight enough to just reach up and pull the gas off my nose. There's the dentist and his assistant, basically watching me die, and having no idea. (ok, so maybe it really wasn't that bad, but the only sane thing I could process in my mind was that I wasn't ready to leave Jesse and my kids!) Finally my body reacted and I threw my arms and legs in the air. This clued the dentist in (and finally the assistant realized that she should use the tools in her hand) and he took the gas off, stopped working and left me alone to breath for a few minutes. Oh sweet O2!

Anyways, my appt. was a 3 and it was almost 7 when I got home. The office closed at 5, so it was just me and the dentist by the time I left. I feel like I did when I had my 4 impacted wisdom teeth pulled. I can't even open my mouth very wide because my jaw is so sore from the shots. Too bad I have more work to get done next month!