Dentist’s Appointment

I shared last week that I was going to have a dentist’s appointment soon and was really nervous. I reluctantly agreed with the care facility physician that 1mg lorazepam the night before and 1mg about an hour before my 8:30AM appt should help me enough. It for sure must’ve helped some, but I was a little disappointed in how much of the edge it took off.

I had my appointment today. Went to bed at 8:30PM yesterday evening to hopefully get a good night’s sleep. I didn’t. I half-awoke at least eight times before finally waking up at 4:15AM and not getting back to sleep.

Still, I was calm’ish on the way to the dentist’s office. My dentist’s practice is at the main institution for my care agency in Wilp, which is a 45-minute drive from Raalte. I had fully expected to fall asleep in the car, but I didn’t.

I still didn’t really know what to expect, even though I’ve had a lot of cavities filled before. This was an old filling that needed replacing, so that should be easier. It wasn’t. I did get a topical anesthetic. That reminded me of why I hadn’t had it when I had seven cavities filled at age eighteen. The anesthetic is really, well, weird. I really expected the injection to hurt, but it didn’t. Instead, the feel of numbness and thickness was more annoying.

I was really anxious all throughout the procedure, but had no idea how to make it clear. I mean, my day activities staff was with me and she held my hand, but she apparently didn’t feel me pinching it. Then again, what could we have done anyway?

I had one filling replaced and a new cavity filled. It also turned out I have a pretty bad mouth ulcer near the tooth that needed the filling replaced. That will need to go away on its own. I will need to return in April to get some fillings on the other side replaced.

Now we’re twelve hours on and I do have some slight pain still, but it’s manageable.

I’m just trying to relax this evening. Had a pretty good day overall today. Having lunch with the anesthetic still wearing off, was kind of hard, so we chose to move the Tuesday morning cooking activity at day activities to the afternoon. The tortilla wraps were delicious!