Flashback Friday A Day Early

A friend/coworker/faithful reader just texted me and gave me the details of a trip to the dentist with her four year old daughter. She has to have some type of spacer, and the dentist had to take it out a few weeks ago, but unfortunately had to put it back in today. My friend said it took the dentist, two dental hygenists, and her and her husband to hold the kid down. I couldn't help but think about my trips to visit my childhood dentist, Dr. Lester.

Oh how I hated to go. He never hurt me, and according to mom and dad, he always numbed me up real good so I never felt any pain while he was fixing a cavity or doing whatever he had to do. And the 'Rents said that they never had to get a headlock on me to hold me down. But I still hated going, so I can sure empathize with my friend's daughter.

Dr. Lester was one of the best children's dentists in the city, and he was about a half hour's ride from home out in the east end. We had to travel on the Watterson Expressway to get there, and I've mentioned previously when we got near the big pink and white Kaden Tower, I would always have a meltdown because I knew that Dr. Lester was just two exits away. To this day, I purposely avoid going to Ruth's Chris Steak House because it's in the Kaden Tower. But I digress.

All of the fear and dread about going to the dentist when I was a kid spilled over to my adulthood and made me very fearful of going. I'm no ashamed to admit that I went through a period of X amount of years without going to the dentist, just out of fear. But back in 2001 the pain got to be too much on a bad tooth that I forced myself to go. And after having four sets of hands in my mouth at one time attempting to chip out an impacted wisdom tooth piece by piece, nothing much phases me anymore at the dentist. I've even endured a very lengthy root canal without any post-traumatic stress syndrome or meltdowns.

I'm sure my friend's daughter will grow out of this eventually, but until then I know it will be hell for her.