Reign of Dental Queen Decays

For years, I thought of myself as Marijean, Dental Queen.

OK, not really, but proud was I of my cavity-free status, my near-OCD brushing and flossing habits. Now, just days from my 36th birthday, (it’s true, but in fact, I was mistaken for a 23-year-old by an obviously optically challenged young man over the weekend, so there) I had my first cavity (OK, -ies) filled. Now I understand why people fear dentists and delay procedures. Dude. It hurt. And waylaid me worse than a red wine hangover for the remainder of the day.

My dentist, my ninth in a lifetime of strict dentist criteria-failing dental professionals, reassured me that the cavities I’d developed were not of a nature to be avoided by excellent dental hygeine. She was trying to make me feel better in the face of my self-disappointment. Oh, and the pain.

Fact is, I had a dentist I loved, one Curtiss Floyd, from the time I had teeth until I moved away at the tender age of 17. What followed was a series of substandard dentists and ever changing dental plans (once, memorably, I fired a dentist and marched out with my family’s files because I didn’t care for the way they treated my young daughter.) When we moved to Charlottesville, I selected my dentist based on proximity and frankly, the quality of their Web site. In this age, I don’t want to do business with anyone who hasn’t paid sufficient attention to their Web site, no matter what their business.

Anyway, back in the Dr. Floyd days, they used nitrous oxide when they removed my baby teeth, so strong they refused to come out despite tuggings and yankings from my sisters and parents. The Floyd family lived below the dental practice and every hygenist knew our names. We knew theirs, too. I remember being personally offended when Dr. Floyd first began to wear latex gloves. It was probably 1983. Today, Floyd’s son Kevin has joined the practice. He’s my age and I know him only in passing as a friend dated him for a bit when we were in high school. I owe my dental fastidiousness to my first dentist.

So now, as I feel this odd, foreign filling in my mouth, my first prosthetic device, I wonder how long before more of me starts to chip away and decay, facing my 36th birthday.