I’m pretty anxious around dentists. The idea of scraping, pulling or poking at teeth just freaks me out, the way that some people go squirrely around insects, and so I tend to keep my visits to a minimum. What this means is that I’m negligent in my oral care, and whenever I go to the dentist I usually get some sort of depressing news and have to undergo a gruesome procedure.
And so yesterday, after spending the majority of the week with a throbbing head, ear and jaw– which I mystifyingly attributed to my sinuses– I went to the dentist and found out that I have an infected tooth that will require antibiotics, and perhaps two root canals.
I was in a pretty grim and fragile state while this examination and diagnosis was unfolding and found myself unusually irritable.
The assistant who led me to the dentist’s chair room was a woman I hadn’t seen before. Normally, whenever I go to the dentist, there’s an assembly of well-turned-out young women working there. All exuding optimism and good cheer, they’d happily flash a perfect smile, and I’d feel instantly reassured by their evident confidence, professionalism and competence. They always, just as they were supposed to do, relaxed me.
But yesterday this didn’t happen. The assistant that was looking after me seemed lost, like she was replacing a friend for a day. Short and round, with unusually textured hair, she looked different than everybody else, and unlike all the other employees, it looked like she had just one outfit that she wore to work five days in a row. She spoke haltingly and with a heavy accent, and she seemed uncertain of what she was supposed to be doing. She moved about robotically, like she only saw what was directly in front of her, and she actually looked scared, like she was just waiting to fuck-up.
Because her English was so poor, I had a very hard time understanding her instructions, which she seemed uncertain of in the first place. (It was like she was trying to remember a script she had memorized but could not recall) I was tired and in pain, and I was getting frustrated with all the mistakes she was making and her nervous demeanor. Eventually she got me up for an X-Ray, which was irritating because she could not communicate what she wanted and was too scared to ask for help. After the X-Ray was taken (it was one of those panorama things that rotates around you) and I was disentangling myself from the machine, (that you kind of wear) the whole apparatus, that is controlled by hydraulics, was shut off and fell on me.
I wasn’t hurt. I was able to duck and slide out of the way as it slammed down, but it really pissed me off, and I spun around and shouted at the woman, “What are you doing?!”
Startled, she just shook her head. She didn’t know what she was doing.
A stranger in a strange land, each day she must get up to a job she isn’t very good at. She likely waits for things to go wrong around her, to be misunderstood. It must be so very lonely, so very frustrating. And as the staff was fussing over me making sure I was alright, I saw the dentist, who very nearly had tears in her eyes, talking to the assistant, “Oh Rosa, it wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t! It could have happened to anybody!”
And from Rosa you just saw an acute portrait of loneliness.