Dentist Appointment

Before I do the last part of my winter vacation blogging, I'm gonna talk about my recent trip to the dentist!

I've known for a long time that my wisdom teeth were eventually going to have to come out. I've know this since I was pretty little, but I never found the time to actually go and get them removed. One could blame this on soccer, but...in retrospect, I think that I should've prioritized my health over my hobby so that I could've easily avoid pain in the future.

Recently, my wisdom teeth have started to hurt a little bit...it comes and goes, but more often, it's not there. This dull ache made me realize that these darn teeth needed to go before they mess up the alignment of all my other teeth. So, I gathered all of my courage and called the dentist to make an appointment to check out my teeth. While I was super happy that I was able to make the appointment over the phone entirely in Japanese, I was terrified for what was later to come...

The day finally came. I hopped out of work super early and raced to the supermarket to buy a ton of slushy/mushy food ingredients just in case they were gonna pull my teeth that day. I really had no idea what they were going to do...

I arrived at the dentist's office super early, just in case they needed me to fill out any paperwork. After giving them my National Health Insurance card, I was told to wait until they called my name. It was probably one of the longer waits of my life...I was so nervous....

They called my name and I was whisked away to a chair, where a nurse came with a form in hand. She was about to give it to me to fill out, then decided to ask me the questions, figuring that I probably couldn't read the kanji on it anyways. So much faith...(but probably warranted). I was able to answer all the questions in Japanese (or through universal miming signs lol), but I thought I was going to give her a headache, since she looked really worried every time I asked her for clarification. ^^; Anyways, the check-up went well, and they then took an x-ray of my mouth for the doctor to inspect. They even let me keep a copy of it! Here's what my wisdom teeth (and skull/eye sockets) look like!

Say "cheese"!

I finally met the doctor after they took the x-ray. To my surprise, he was able to speak some English! He said that I had to have all 4 pulled out, but that, in Japan, they don't pull out all 4 at once, for some reason. I tried asking him nicely if they'd make an exception, but he strongly advised against having all of them taken out. Sigh...here's to many trips to the doctor in the near future...

The next thing he said was fairly surprising..."We can take one out today, if you want."

Huh? Come again?

Back in California, I had a dentist appointment in April. In that appointment, my dentist said that she was going to try to get an appointment for me to see the oral surgeon to take out my wisdom teeth. She told me that she'd email me back with a list of days that the oral surgeon was available.

I got an email on October 5th saying that an appointment with the oral surgeon had opened up for mid-October. Annnnd I was already in Japan. Great. Just great.

But yes, this process of waiting for the oral surgeon appointment took 6 months. And these guys in Japan were willing to do it they day of my first appointment ever with them? Sweet! ...I think...

I wanted to get one over with, so I let them pull one. They started with the easiest one, my upper left wisdom tooth (which is the upper right one in the picture). They numbed the area and it took all of two minutes for them to pull it out. It wasn't really painful at all, but the force of the pulling that they used to get my tooth out was super 気持ち悪かった (kimochi warui, which is basically "super unpleasant" or "bad feeling").

I'm glad it was over fast, but there seemed to be many complications afterwards. I guess I was so nervous that I felt really sick when I first got up. They made me lay back down for a bit. After that, my appointment was over, so I walked over to where the dentist was sitting so we could talk about the future teeth removals, but I felt super light-headed while talking with him. He made me lay back down with an oxygen mask on and told me that my face looked really pale. =[

After recovering, the doctor gave me a prescription for medicine and I was off on my way.

Well, I'm not looking forward to the upcoming dentist appointments (especially for the bottom wisdom teeth, which they have to first cut [along the red lines in the picture above], then remove the tooth), but at least this dental office seems trustworthy and all of the staff is super nice! :) I'm really glad I was able to take the initiative and do this by myself. It feels so good to become more independent in this country where I have trouble speaking the language...this independence may be a sign that I'm slowly improving (or at least gaining confidence, which I definitely need)!

クリスティン、ファイト！Over and out!

Next, the final part of my winter vacation travels!