March, 2009:

Those of you who’ve been following along since last summer may remember how I went through extreme facial pain as a result of botched dental work. In short, I had some fillings done and they resulted in an infection that eventually (increasing over a few months) gave me such pain I didn’t know one could survive such pain and not die of ow. And the dentist wouldn’t believe me about the pain until the point that I broke down in front of him crying that my life was over if the pain didn’t stop. His last resort, after a root canal not helping, was antibiotics, which fixed things within a day. After 3 months of pain.

I’m still pissed off about this (not that you could tell, of course) because I’ve been left with chronic face pain that’s luckily nowhere near as bad as that which was making me fall to the ground in public, clutching my face, but is still annoying (kind of like a headache, but around my right eye and temple) and still undiagnosed. My theory is that the nerve on that side got damaged by the infection, but last time I checked I didn’t have a medical license, so I don’t know for sure, and neither does my doctor. But, anyways, here’s another thing for me to complain about.

A side problem with all this happening is that I’m now freaked out about dentists, since that one guy treated me like a luser who was exaggerating the pain for attention or kicks. A week or so after the pain stopped I got laid off (I had an awesome summer) and I no longer have extended medical, so fear/hatred of dentists plus having to pay to visit scary dentists have kept me from getting my teeth checked.

Things are kinda feeling funny in there, though, so I feel I should buck up and find the inner strength to enter a dental office with the hope that maybe these people will be nice to me this time.

This is where you (or, you who lives in Vancouver) come in. I’m not so dumb that I’m going to go back to that dentist’s office, even if it’s the same office I’d gone to since I was a toddler and there are other dentists there than that jerk. Surely someone knows a dentist who treats their patients with at least a basic level of respect, and doesn’t dismiss talk of pain. Oh, and it would be nice to see a hygienist who didn’t guilt-trip me about my tea-drinking habits, or for not wearing my nightguard (I need a new one, since jerk dentist fucked mine up, trying to give me a Simpsons-character-level underbite). I’m now extra-sensitive about all of this.

So, can you recommend a dentist?

Also, do any of you have any similar issues or stories about visiting their dentist? I’m just wondering how unlucky I was, and whether the treatment I received was uncommon or par for the course. Hopefully the former.

(Strangely, right after I posted this I got a call from my dentist’s office saying it was time for my 6-month checkup. Weird coincidence.)

Facebook’s People You May Know feature keeps asking me if I know this guy, who probably doesn’t remember me but who I remember as he whom my best friend in high school deflowered when he was in Grade 10 (and she in 12, the cradle-robber). But it’s not through this former best friend that Facebook made this connection (as we no longer talk) but through other mutual acquaintances, and not from high school.

Flickr recently showed me pictures of some guy I had a very short fling with in 2001 and hadn’t seen since, but who now seems to hang out with other people I vaguely know.

The sex-degrees-of-separation situation is freaking me out, yo. It’s sort of like we’ve all slept with each other, but indirectly. Was I good?

On a less gross note, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised but it does sometimes confuse me to see which of my friends know other friends of mine, and not through me. Like, some classmates from Grade 8 in Kitimat know my classmates from Grades 9-12 in Vancouver. Note high school was the early 90s, so this was a while ago. Or musician friends know my computer nerd friends. What happened to the cliques, damnit? I need to keep everyone compartmentalized.

I’d like to think that these people get together in their pairs and small groups and share heartwarming anecdotes about me over tea and scones, but paranoia sort of ruins that image for me anyways. Most likely they don’t know the mutual connection, or they do but I mean so little to their daily lives that I was never brought up in conversation at all. Better that than them getting together and bitching about how much I suck, though, which is always a possibility, however slight I’d like to think it is.

It is a small world, or more likely, a small city. Of over 2 million people.