Friday, March 09, 2007

Amanda hates me and I hate the dentist

My daughter has already uttered the dreaded words... "I hate you, Mom!".
It's bad enough being called "Mom" instead of mommy by my 2 year old, but throw in the I hate you part and it really makes long for her pre-speech days. Luc still has never said this to me, but I know he picked up the "I hate, blank" thing at preschool. It's I hate girl stuff, I hate pizza, I hate practicing.... So of course Amanda picked up on this and decided to apply it to me when I don't give her or do something she wants.
But I will take an I Hate You over her full-blown tantrums. They are getting less frequent, but no less extreme. Everyone who knows here will vouch for her being the loudest little girl, ever. She is loud when she is just talking normally but when you really P@!s her off she sounds like a train wreck.

Now, I guess Amanda could have picked up the I Hate You thing from me because recently I could have been overheard saying that "I hate the dentist."
I really do. There is one dentist that I love (he is so kind, and gentle and empathetic to my crazy fears) but alas he is not on husband's crappy hmo plan so I can only go to him when I've got extra cash. So, I went to the hmo dentist (nice, but in a car salesman type way) and he informed me that I need a root canal in one of my molars. He said that the endodontist covered by my insurance (where I'll still have to pay $650 for the job) isn't that great and he said that I could go check them out but he hadn't heard the best things. Great. I'm already a nervous dental patient and now I'm being told that I have to see a specialist that might not be so special.
I went in for the procedure yesterday. I've never had a root canal, so I didn't know what to expect. But I have had novacaine shots from my fabulous dentist and he is always very gentle -- taking up to 3 minutes to inject one shot. And he always makes a point of telling me to close my eyes before he comes at me with the huge needle. Well, the doc yesterday barely introduced himself and then asked me to open wide and came at me quickly with the shot. He took about 15 seconds to inject two separate shots. It was quite uncomfortable and my internal alarms started going off right away. Now, I'm not afraid of pain, heck, I gave birth to two children. So, if the procedure will hurt a bit, that's fine. But my fear was that the job wouldn't be done well and would require subsequent procedures to fix... that I wouldn't like.
Doc left the stall to let the novacaine take effect. My palms started sweating, heart started racing and I was a caged bunny. I've had panic attacks in the past and I knew one when I felt it coming on. I grabbed my purse and told the staff I had to leave and reschedule the procedure. The doc came out to ask if everything was alright and I just said, trying to fight off tears of embarassment, that I was going to have to take valium or something before I had the procedure done. I left, feeling a bit mortified by my behavior but also relieved.
Now what do I do? My fabulous dentist referred me to a very gentle endodontist in the area. I called to find out what they charge for a root canal and it is $1200. So, now I have to decide if I want to fork out an extra $550 now for piece of mind. I'm confused and more than ever I hate going to the dentist.

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