9.09.2003

I had the worst day of my life last thursday...My cavity had progressively gotten worse. So I decided thurday was the day to skip school and call out from work to get it fixed. Problem is...I cant have a tooth drilled while I am awake...I just cant do it. I went to a few dentist offices and they all told me no sleep, just pain. SO i walked out of them. Then we goto this foreigner's Medical clinic that was a good 15 minute walk from the train station. It was an American doctor who smugly told me he does not acept Japanese Governmet National Health Insurance. So he expected I was going to say, ok I will just pay cash. He was shocked when I said "Typical." and walked out. Then I goto a dentist in Roppongi he tells Miho to take me to. It was 145pm, he was closed until 2pm. By this point it hurt soo much it was blurring my vision. Not to mention the renovations going on inside the building...the sound of drills and saws and hammering nails...I was crying. So then I goto my Dentist. After 45 minutes of trying to take a drill, I just coundlt do it awake. He refers me to a hospital about 40 minutes away that can put me to sleep and drill the cavity. So we go there...the guy tells me in his half broken english that for me to be put to sleep to have a cavity rilled they mustadmit me to the hospital for 2 nights...i said to him " You gotta be shittin me!" Since when do people spend 2 nights in a hospital for a cavity? I tried to calmly explain to him in english, with Miho even translating, that in America they put you to sleep for the procedure, then you wake up, they make sure you are ok...then you can even drive home. What the hell coul they possibly do for me laying two nights in a hospital bed?? So I just get up and walk away calmly. My pain killers the first dentist gave to me are now kicking in and I feel ok. I actually ate my first meal walking outta there too. Then we go to shibuya Gaspanic and I start drinkin gin and tonics to stop the pain. It, for some reason, isnt working. At home it did..maybe cuz I put more gin in the drink. But anyway, a bartender there gives me the card of a 24 hour dentist.

We got home at like 10 that night. He called us back soon after. He was all the way out in eastern tokyo at the end of the hibiya subway line, we live in eastern tokyo at the western end of the hibiya subway line. It took us 40 minutes to get there. The last train back to our home was at 1204am. The guy is Japanese, but speaks perfect english. so we get there and the guy puts novocaine in my mouth and I tell him that unless he puts me to sleep he cant drill my tooth. Then he tells me to calm down and he lights a ciggarette!!! This guy is smoking in his dentist office!!! Then Miho lights one up too!! Then he says, would you like some coffee?? Miho says, we dont have time we have to catch the last train. He says...dont worry, besides I make really good coffee...so he makes three cups...it was quite good. Then he gives me more novacaine. THen smokes a nother cigg. Then he says...ok now I am gonna drill your teeth..i was like...WHAT WHAT?!?!?! So I argue that he will not drill my teeth. He starts bullying me into the dentist's chair calling me a wuss and a baby. So to shut him up i sit down and just decide to grin and bare it. He drills and I do not feel it. He is the first dentist that made novocaine work on me. It never used to. Bless him. SO he drills my teeth, rips out my nerves inside the tooth so it wont hurt anymore...dont know how good an idea that was...and then puts a emp filling on it cuz they have to change the medicine inside my tooth cuz the roots were infected too. We walk outta there at 1150. Plenty of time to catch the subway home. That guy was a crackhead..but god bless him.