Mary Flaig's Blog

Had lunch at Celestino's in Chatham village with a friend today who's going to Italy on Thursday. C. has just been assured she can hold off on a root canal she thought might make her trip impossible. Her dentist, however, couldn't figure out which tooth was causing her problem and sent her to a specialist. I should have taken that as a warning, as on Tuesday I had my first appointment with him...I had a cap removed and a new one designed that would be a little bigger than the original and a tooth filled next to it. Probably, my first mistake was having such a big job done by a new dentist. It was the most uncomfortable dental process I've ever experienced, with particles from the drill getting caught in my throat from the beginning of the session. I was injected with so much novacaine that I didn't feel the discomfort of his pulling my mouth all over the place...the cap size had to modified...the technician was pulling it on and off, over and over again, and then the debris from the dentist's tool, to size it, floated onto my face and clothes. That evening, my lip and jaw swelled up to 3 times their natural size. I was instructed to call their emergency # if I had any questions or concerns, 24 hrs a day. Never having experienced a reaction like this, I called. However, the answering machine never clicked over to the dentist's cell as it was supposed to, that evening or the next morning. When I finally spoke to him, after calling his office #, and explained my situation, he sounded very nervous...kept swallowing....and, to top off the mistake I made in ever setting foot in his office, called in a prescription to the wrong pharmacy. 6 days later, I'm beginning to eat normally as the damage caused by his rough manipulations is almost healed...the crepe I had for lunch tasted so good. Larry, how would you handle this?