'oral'

while my fear of the dentist is certainly nothing earth-shattering, it is new in my life over approximately the last few years.  i think i can pinpoint when i started having the teeth-falling-out/smashed/etc dreams - soon after withnessing a car accident in which i saw one of the drivers open his mouth after impact, only to have his teeth dribble into his lap like a mouthful of tic-tacs.  or at least that's the way i remember it now.

dentophobia is extremely common, and certainly not as exotic as most of the phobias on this list, but that does not do many any good when i break into a cold sweat considering my upcoming back-to-back root canal "retreatment" and fillings.

i am strangely bitter about the fact that neither of these events can be blamed on bad oral hygiene; at least then i'd have to suck it up to take responsibility for my own actions.  but i've had tooth problems since i was a child - something about my the density of my teeth being lower or more porous or something due to a childhood high fever that happened at the same time that i had some kid illness or other.   my dad, of course, recalls nothing of this and for the 83 millionth time i long for my mother to ask questions.  but i digress.

so the fillings are because i have crappy teeth, but the root canal, get this, is because i had a crappy dentist.  how shitty is that?  i had a root canal done when i was about 10 or 11 and basically it was done in such a fashion that it now has to be "fixed" - re-done, basically.  my understanding is that of the 3 roots in my #19 tooth, the jackass only actually did 2 of the 3 roots and left one entirely untouched.  plus of the 2, one he didn't finish entirely.  and thus it is no wonder that i now face very dreaded oral surgery that i am contemplating getting completely xanaxed for.

not even the thought of tripp's old suggestion toward bettering dentistry can calm me at the moment.   although i guess that service  has a gender-bias in it anyway.