Last night I once again made a trip to my dentist to continue the ongoing saga of repairing my teeth.
The short story version of it is that the fillings that I got way back in high school are pretty old these days, and underneath them, bad things have been happening. The dentist is working on the third of the four fillings that I had. At first we thought that just two would need work, but a sharp pain last month told us that we’d need to continue to the third filling. I wouldn’t be surprised if we go ahead and look at the fourth while we’re at it.
Dentists work a little differently here in Japan, at least for the patients that have jobs. I go to the dentist after work, so that means an appointment from 6 pm to 7 pm. Because the time is limited he can’t do so much at one time, so I end up coming back quite often to gradually get everything done. I checked my records and I’ve been going to the dentist almost weekly since May of this year. Five months of dentistry! Sounds like one of the circles of hell.
The dentist himself is a nice enough guy, and like his staff he makes no effort to be friendly or to chit-chat with his patients. It isn’t surprising for Japan, where the old Asian stoicism is often seen as professionalism. It is strange to my American cultural norms – after seeing someone weekly for half a year you’d think we could move beyond “Hello”.
Still, after five months I feel like I know the place pretty well: Wow, today I get to sit in chair number two! This is only the second time to be in chair two, and I like the view a little better than chairs three and four. By experience I know that chair two is the primary chair, because chair one is reserved for kids – it has lots of kid friendly decor and pictures around it. Chair two is nice, but I notice the dust on the ground near the window, and I see there is a little stain on the ceiling right above the dental lamp. I try not to think about how that stain got there.
Anyway, the dental marathon will continue, but next week I have no appointment thanks the dentist’s busy schedule. That just means that I’ll have to chew only on the right side of my mouth for two weeks, but I’m used to it by now.
