It's All About Teeth, Teeth, Teeth

[shake_the_stars]

I went to the dentist today. Due to first a long spell of no insurance, and then a spell of bad insurance that did not cover a dental visit (and the fact that when you have to work shitty retail due to the economy, $80 out of pocket is like a ten-hour shift at your shitty job), I hadn't been in a couple of years

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[shake_the_stars]

OH GOD, I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN. I won't tell you the horror story from my childhood because you may never sleep again, but I have similar recurrent nightmares that I think are partially related. I don't need to be 100% conscious and fully engaged, but I do need to not be put under. I'm afraid of dying under that shit, which, though it's fairly rare, is a risk you run any time someone is out cold.

I'm actually not phobic about medicine at all; part of this is that I've never had any kind of surgery and I have no frame of reference. Part of it is that I don't believe in the use of painkillers (for myself, other people can do what they want with their bodies and that's not my business) and won't even take aspirin for a headache; I won't take anything unless I'm in so much agony that I can't function. I just find it really condescending and insulting that other people assume they know better than I do whether I am in pain, how much pain I am in, and what needs to be done about it, rather than allowing me to make those decisions and manage it in a way that is comfortable and permissible for me.

I am more sanguine about the antibiotics because I don't want an infection, but they dick with my birth control and that is Not Okay. Not that it's an issue right now, or if I'm honest ever likely to be again, but I'm not sterile yet.