Really tough dentist appointment 1

I just got home from a really really difficult dentist appointment. This appointment was harder than my last appointment, where there was an ill-behaved ESA running loose trying to jump on my dog. So obviously we went to a different dentist this time. This one had been recommended by family so we thought we were golden.

When we arrived, we were informed that they double booked us for the same appointment time. And they had another patient who had a 1PM appointment, too. Luckily they were great about Felix and gave me zero issues with him being a service dog.

So they sat me back in the exam room and took my X-rays. Felix was so good under the lead cape, and the tech doing the X-raying was very competent. Then they left me there for about an hour. Brad hadn’t been called back yet, but I figured they had been overbooked so it wasn’t their fault and I’d just be patient.

Then the dentist came in. She was fairly nice at first, but was upset at me because my teeth were stained from having cocoa powder in my nightly smoothies and because I don’t floss every day. Then she started to get upset about the double booking and how she didn’t have time to do everything that she was scheduled for that day.

I think she was just upset in general, but I don’t do well with other people being angry and so felt like her anger was directed at me. At one point I offered that I could come back another day if she only had time for one of us, since Brad can only leave the house once a week. But she said his teeth looked pretty good so it would be OK.

Then after they’ve taken my X-rays and done half the exam, she asked for my social security number. We don’t give out our socials to medical offices since there’s so much identity theft these days from online systems, and all their records are online. She pressed me on it and I said that my husband said I can’t give out my SSN. So she said “well then I can’t see you, get up!”. I was like well what will insurance do with this because you did half the services already. She said “not my problem”.

So we went to talk with Brad, who was hanging out with the tech and having a lovely conversation (they had just ignored me totally when I was sitting for an hour) and Brad smoothed things over, but we did have to give our SSNs.

So then we went back to the room to do my cleaning. The dental tool that she tried to use to clean my teeth was malfunctioning. I have hearing loss and can’t hear high pitched sounds. But this dental tool was making a piercing really loud high pitched sound. It was painful even to my ears. Felix was a champ and just laid on my lap calm as could be. But it was making me really anxious. And the tool was malfunctioning, squirting water all over my face.

Eventually she gave up and just cleaned my teeth with hand tools. But by this time I was close to a panic attack. I felt like she was mad at me, even though she was prattling away as she cleaned my teeth about innocuous things and seeming like she was a nice person. But I couldn’t get past her anger at being overbooked and the SSN thing.

So I started to shake. I couldn’t keep my lower jaw from shaking. Felix was doing pressure therapy really well on me, and prevented me from gong full blown panic attack, but I was having so much anxiety. She kept asking if my blood sugar was OK, and I kept saying yes. I didn’t want to tell her I was afraid of her!

So I got done with my cleaning at about 3PM, two hours after my appointment was supposed to start. They still had to do Brad’s appointment, so I was left waiting in the waiting room. The whole time I was in the exam room, the dentist was complaining about how hot it was with the AC set to 69 so she had the staff turn it down. So I was in the waiting room and it was FREEZING in there. Today the high outside was 68 degrees, and it felt colder in the dentist office than it did outside.

At 3:35PM, over two and a half hours after our appointments were supposed to start, Brad was finally done with his appointment. I was so happy to see him. Apparently he had a totally different experience than I had with everyone being friendly to him and nice, offering him blankets, etc.

The only redeeming factor was that she offered to do 6 month checkups (which our insurance doesn’t cover) for only $50. So I might go back, we’ll see…….

But this has definitely ruined my plans for this week. I had been planning to go out for free Everbowl (one of my favorite restaurants) on Thursday, but I just don’t think after this I can manage to leave the house again this week.

One good thing is I got a cute picture of Felix on my lap, about 5 minutes into waiting. He is wearing a purple vest.