Dentist
Have you ever had a dentist, while working on you, stop abruptly and say “oops”? Twice? Well I have, and this is my story.
I went to the dentist a few months ago for a check up and found that I had to have a cavity filled. My dentist Dr. Colazi calmly started with the normal routine by injecting a little Xylocaine (like Novocaine) in to the back of the inside of my cheek.
The instant he finished emptying the syringe and pulled it out, and said “oops”.
I responded, “what do you mean, ‘oops’?”
He replied, “I think I injected some into your vein. If you feel your heart start racing, don’t panic, I think it will be OK. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Wouldn’t you know it. As soon as Dr. Colazi left, my heart started racing, and I began breathing heavily.
After a few minutes, Dr. Colazi came back in the room, and said, “How are we feeling? Is your lip starting to feel numb?”
I replied, “No. Actually, I don’t feel numb at all. But my heart definitely started beating fast right after you left”.
Dr. Colazi said, “Oh. I must have injected the entire amount directly in to your vein. It probably all got carried away from the site, and straight to your heart.”
I said, “That’s very comforting, but I still don’t feel numb”.
Dr. Colazi said, “Well, we’re going to have to do it again”. He then proceeded to take another syringe full of Xylocaine, and injected in in to the same part of my mouth and left for another few minutes.
This time, when Dr. Colazi left the room, I didn’t feel my heart race, but I definitely started getting numb—and I mean really numb. I not only had a numb lip, I had an entire side of my face that was starting to feel lifeless. The feeling was All the way from the middle of my neck up to the temple of my forehead—all numb. It actually started affecting my ability to swallow.
The rest of the appointment went fine. It certainly didn’t hurt! I had so much Xylocaine in my system, I could have been kicked in the teeth with a steel-toe-boot and I wouldn’t have noticed.
When Dr. Colazi was nearly finished polishing my new filling, he said, “One more spot”. He took the drill, made a little contact with a tooth, and said “oops”.
I said, “Again? What happened? What does ‘oops’ mean this time?”
He said, “I might have taken a little too much off.”
He looked at the dental assistant sitting on the other side of me and said, “I don’t know, what do you think?”
She replied hesitantly, “It’s… um… okay…”
Dr. Colazi could see at this point that I was starting to get nervous. He jumped in, “Mark, I think it’ll be OK. We got the spacing between two of your teeth a little farther apart than normal. If it gives you any problems, come back in and we’ll take care of it.”
I reluctantly agreed that that was fine, and that I’d come back in if I had troubles.
Before I left the chair, Dr. Colazi and his assistant were cleaning up. He started chuckling as he took one last look at my teeth. His assistant asked him, “What are you chuckling about Dr. Colazi?”
He said, “It’s not pretty. But… Git-R-Done”.