Do or Do Not.

Nothing to fear but…

with 5 comments

It’s been said that the fear involved in anticipation of a thing tends to be far, far worse than the thing itself. And I’m realizing lately that I have to agree.

I’ve long been petrified of going to the dentist. I had a regular dentist appointment about a month ago, which scared the hell out of me–I hadn’t been in I-don’t-even-know-how-long. It wasn’t even an appointment for a cleaning or anything–just a consultation. But I was still terrified. However, the dentist was a perfectly nice guy and absolutely nothing scary happened during the visit. My fear was completely unjustified.

This morning, I had to go visit a periodontist–I’ve had some gum problems for awhile (mostly being that they’re seriously receding), and my dentist wants me to get that taken care of before doing the stuff he needs to do. I was even more scared of going to see this guy. Now we’ve moved to a specialized dentist, which requires a specialized kind of fear.

But, again, it was nowhere near as bad as I’d anticipated. Neither was my prognosis. Nor was the amount of money I’m going to have to shell out.

All of which means I’ve spent years being afraid of something that, it turns out, I had no reason to fear. And all of which makes me wonder…what else have I been scared to do when I really shouldn’t have been?

Written by Allen

July 20th, 2005 at 3:48 pm

Posted in General

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  • http://www.rowdenland.com Jay

    I hope I’ve never told you any of my scores of dental stories. My mouth is a dentist’s dream. Anyway, I’ll skip the stories for your benefit. Great job facing your fear!

  • http://do-or-do-not.thunderdog.com/ Allen

    Thanks! I have one more thing to fear now, though: the periodontist used the words “root planing and scaling,” which I’ve heard means I should run as far and as fast as I can in the other direction.

    But on the positive side, he gave me a prescription for Valium, too. :)

  • http://www.rowdenland.com Jay

    Now, that is one procedure I haven’t had, but did have valium when I ruptured my eardrum. It’s niiice. I only had 1/2 a pill and I slept for 14 hours.

  • http://www.rowdenland.com/kitchen Michelle

    And that is why you should make regular visits to the dentist. If nothing else, it’s someone else to brag to about your beautiful kids.

  • http://do-or-do-not.thunderdog.com/ Allen

    Oh, believe me, Michelle–once I have all of this sorted out, I’m going to get my teeth cleaned every six months until I don’t have any more teeth to take care of.

    Of course, if I don’t get this sorted out, that point where I don’t have teeth to take care of will come much, much more quickly. :)