A Sensitive Soul
“Well, could I have an appointment with another dentist there?”
“Désolée, there are no vacancies,” said the dental receptionist in Loudun.
Well that was a kick in the teeth. Anna, my wife, amongst her other ailments had been experiencing a distant pain in her jaw.
For the next few months she tried in vain to find a dental practice that would take her on their books.
We would resort to driving around towns in the greater Deux-Sèvres district looking for dental practices. When we did find one, like a lot of things in France, it would be shut and not contactable through telephone or email.Things were getting desperate.
I am blessed with a fine set of gnashers, but Anna, being Scottish, has consumed far too much Irn-Bru and Cranachan in her life, with the result that when enjoying a wasabi coated nut one Friday night, an audible crunch was heard and a large fragment of molar fell out.
DIY dentistry was considered; I have some very small drill bits and a soldering iron...how hard can it be?
But then word got out on the expat grapevine that a practice in Airvault, which is just down the road from us, had taken on three new dentists. Before you could say orthodontist Anna was down there making an appointment.
Her new dentist is a lovely young Romanian woman, who can speak English as well as French and is a root canal specialist, which unnerved me somewhat. As well as having a few pot holes in the back of her mouth filled she was told she was grinding her teeth and given a gum shield to wear at night (it is like sleeping with a heavy breathing prop forward).
While there Anna had taken the opportunity to make an appointment for me. Now when it comes to injections, needles, etc. I am a right Jessie-Ann. When an animal is being operated on in Supervet I have to look away or hold a cushion in front of my face and Anna tells me when the op is over. So, I wasn't looking forward to my check-up.
The waiting room was heaving with people of all ages and nationalities and after 20 minutes a rather frazzled looking young Romanian popped her head round the door and called my name.
She apologised as she had had a long day and might start speaking the wrong language. As I lay on my back, with my Romanian dentist rootling around my mouth, I wondered why anyone would want to become a dentist...bad back, bad breath, bits of food, dental decay and having to deal with big Jessie-Anns like me at 4 o'clock on a Thursday afternoon.
She said everything looked good but she just had to get rid of some plaque and would I need pain relief? I didn't want to make life complicated for her so said no. She shoved the sucky thing in my mush, cranked up the drill and starting whittling off four years of plaque. I have very sensitive side teeth and when she started drilling down on these I was twitching like a good un. Even the TV embedded in the ceiling showing footage of beautiful tropical islands brought no relief. Laurence Olivier's face as the torturing dentist in Marathon Man kept popping into my mind.
On my way out the door I apologised for leaving two claw marks where I had been gripping the arms of her chair. Also for the coughing fit I had had mid procedure. She was lovely and could not have been kinder.
A special note for the receptionist who often get a bad press (in fact the one at my GPs is a case in point; couldn't be more miserable and unpleasant). But the one at the dentist was lovely, smiling throughout as I tried to cobble my French sentences together (why am I so bad?), even after I had cocked up writing my first cheque and was well on my way to cocking up the second...she kept smiling. Thank you dental receptionist.
I staggered into the car park with my mouth throbbing, ashamed at my pathetic French, my inability to write a French cheque (even though Anna had taken me through the process) and my Jessie-Ann behaviour in the chair.
Comments
Post a Comment