The Chair
For heaven's sake, as if we don't have enough stressful things to deal with..
Orlando has taken this week to going out the front of the house, rather than staying in the back garden as we would prefer. Every night when I've got home I've seen a pair of green eyes staring at me from the roof of a neighbour's garden shed. Tonight I couldn't find her, so went out the front and called for her. I heard a few plantive meows, and after a few minutes Orlando came slowly walking up the drive, looking quite agitated and with her tail big and bushy. She seemed to calm down and was alright. But I just went upstairs to go through the nightly bedtime ritual of turfing her off my dad's bed (strange how she doesn't like him that much but will always sleep on his bed) and there is blood all over it. Not a large amount, but enough to concern me. I can't work out where it is coming from. Orlando herself seems fine, although she looks a little out of sorts.. she's purring, licking my face, happy to eat. If I hadn't seen the blood I wouldn't be worried. But I have seen the blood, and so I AM worried. She's now curled up in her normal spot, next to me in bed, so at least I can keep an eye on her.
I spilt enough of my own blood today anyway. After a gap of, well, a number of years,
I actually cannot remember the last time I visited a dentist. The reason being that we had a family dentist, who was absolutely amazing, from when I was 8 years old. I had a lot of dental work done as a kid, including a couple of operations involving general anesthetic, but I don't ever remember being scared of going to the dentist, so kind, gentle and calm was this man. Eventually he retired, in about 2004 I would guess, and I just never got around to finding another one. A new practice has opened up at the local health centre, and as they were accepting NHS patients I decided I better get a check up.
Because I had one dentist for such a long time, it's very hard for me to compare other ones. Was he good because he was private, and all private dentists are better than the NHS, or was it just that he was exceptional? All I know is that by the end of my, admittedly short, turn in the chair today, I was seriously considering tracking my old one down and begging him to come out of retirement.
Firstly, and I do realise that this sounds racist but it is not meant to be, it is not entirely reassuring when the dentist has trouble speaking and understanding English. I wasn't too worried about whether she could understand me or not, or whether I could understand her.. I mean, who can understand what a patient is staying when their mouth is wide open, and all she needed to tell me was to do better at brushing. What I didn't like was the fact that she couldn't understand her own nurse. She ended up shouting at the dentist, repeating the same thing over and over, getting pretty angry at the dentist. All whilst I am sitting underneath tham having my teeth drilled. Not fun.
The dentist also asked me, before she started the filling, if I wanted the area numbed. Er, hell yeah! Only trouble is, she waiting about 0.7 seconds between putting in the needle, and then starting the drilling. The pain wasn't that much, but I never experienced a millisecond's pain with my previous dentist, and so when the pain was building I kind of squeaked. Not that it stopped her, she kept right on drilling.
Oh, and before she started the drilling, she also scraped my teeth, making my mouth bleed quite a bit. But she didn't give me the chance to rinse out my mouth before she started on the filling. I could feel the blood building up in my mouth.. it was disgusting.
Anyway, I was in and out of there in about 15 minutes. I had one 'small' filling, which is pretty amazing considering how long it is since I went to the dentists, and all the things I've put in my mouth since that last trip (that sounds so much more dodgy than it was meant to be!). But I shall make a valiant effort to look after my teeth, because she said that there were a few areas that look like they may cause problems soon, and I really don't want to have to go through that experience again!
Right, well it's now pretty late and I think, ironically, that the source of Orlando's bleeding is her mouth, so I am going to take another look at her.
Orlando has taken this week to going out the front of the house, rather than staying in the back garden as we would prefer. Every night when I've got home I've seen a pair of green eyes staring at me from the roof of a neighbour's garden shed. Tonight I couldn't find her, so went out the front and called for her. I heard a few plantive meows, and after a few minutes Orlando came slowly walking up the drive, looking quite agitated and with her tail big and bushy. She seemed to calm down and was alright. But I just went upstairs to go through the nightly bedtime ritual of turfing her off my dad's bed (strange how she doesn't like him that much but will always sleep on his bed) and there is blood all over it. Not a large amount, but enough to concern me. I can't work out where it is coming from. Orlando herself seems fine, although she looks a little out of sorts.. she's purring, licking my face, happy to eat. If I hadn't seen the blood I wouldn't be worried. But I have seen the blood, and so I AM worried. She's now curled up in her normal spot, next to me in bed, so at least I can keep an eye on her.
I spilt enough of my own blood today anyway. After a gap of, well, a number of years,
I actually cannot remember the last time I visited a dentist. The reason being that we had a family dentist, who was absolutely amazing, from when I was 8 years old. I had a lot of dental work done as a kid, including a couple of operations involving general anesthetic, but I don't ever remember being scared of going to the dentist, so kind, gentle and calm was this man. Eventually he retired, in about 2004 I would guess, and I just never got around to finding another one. A new practice has opened up at the local health centre, and as they were accepting NHS patients I decided I better get a check up.
Because I had one dentist for such a long time, it's very hard for me to compare other ones. Was he good because he was private, and all private dentists are better than the NHS, or was it just that he was exceptional? All I know is that by the end of my, admittedly short, turn in the chair today, I was seriously considering tracking my old one down and begging him to come out of retirement.
Firstly, and I do realise that this sounds racist but it is not meant to be, it is not entirely reassuring when the dentist has trouble speaking and understanding English. I wasn't too worried about whether she could understand me or not, or whether I could understand her.. I mean, who can understand what a patient is staying when their mouth is wide open, and all she needed to tell me was to do better at brushing. What I didn't like was the fact that she couldn't understand her own nurse. She ended up shouting at the dentist, repeating the same thing over and over, getting pretty angry at the dentist. All whilst I am sitting underneath tham having my teeth drilled. Not fun.
The dentist also asked me, before she started the filling, if I wanted the area numbed. Er, hell yeah! Only trouble is, she waiting about 0.7 seconds between putting in the needle, and then starting the drilling. The pain wasn't that much, but I never experienced a millisecond's pain with my previous dentist, and so when the pain was building I kind of squeaked. Not that it stopped her, she kept right on drilling.
Oh, and before she started the drilling, she also scraped my teeth, making my mouth bleed quite a bit. But she didn't give me the chance to rinse out my mouth before she started on the filling. I could feel the blood building up in my mouth.. it was disgusting.
Anyway, I was in and out of there in about 15 minutes. I had one 'small' filling, which is pretty amazing considering how long it is since I went to the dentists, and all the things I've put in my mouth since that last trip (that sounds so much more dodgy than it was meant to be!). But I shall make a valiant effort to look after my teeth, because she said that there were a few areas that look like they may cause problems soon, and I really don't want to have to go through that experience again!
Right, well it's now pretty late and I think, ironically, that the source of Orlando's bleeding is her mouth, so I am going to take another look at her.