Long story short: I had to do check-ups before a pending jaw surgery to correct my slanted jawline. Today's check-up included taking X-Rays and jaw molds.
Firstly the good doctor poked and prodded the mouth with varying types of metal objects. I was ushered to a narrow room with bulky machinery to get X-Rayed. After donning this heavyweight apron thingy (Supposed to help protect against radiation? O_O), I had to bite down on this plastic bit while the nurse lady potted around with the machine(s). THEN SHE LEFT THE ROOM. Leaving me alone with the hulking machine. All she said was something along the lines of not moving and that she'll be back soon.
And there I was, standing alone in the dim cramped room biting down on the plastic extension of the machine and staring at nothing in particular since my glasses was kidnapped by the nurse lady.
The resulting silence was deafening.
I had half a mind to release my bite on the plastic bit when the machine beeped and shifted itself. The scanner thing sliced through the air, circling my head, as though looking for any weaknesses to pick on. There was a niggin spark of panic creeping in then. The machine kept beeping at me and suddenly halted. Somehow, I got the feeling that it was going to start shooting lasers like a Star Wars drone on crack and give me an impromptu lobotomy.
Maybe it was my tensing up that the X-Ray of the side view ended up tilted. But at least one can appreciate the smooth roundness of my wide forehead from that. It was pretty for a X-Ray pic. =)
Then came the frontal X-Ray. The nurse lady came back and ushered me to another dangerous-looking piece of equipment where she promptly clamped my head using prongs. Prongs which extended into my ear canals and pressed against the furrows of the eyebrows. Plastic UNBREAKABLE prongs.
I hadn't felt so trapped ever since the tunnel game way back in OBS (We were locked in twisted labyrinth-like hamster tunnel in total darkness and with about a dozen other n00by n00bs, but that's another story for another day).
The machine got into two of my orifices, pressed down between another two very vital orifices and bascially forced my HEAD into place with its plasticky hardness.
Then the nurse lady went off AGAIN and left me to the devices of that blasted machine. I very well near had a panic attack there and then. It was like one of those gory movies whereby the victim, ensnared in orifice-invading traps, makes a sudden move and ends up getting skewered/BBQ-ed/lobotomised. Yeah. Maybe I have been watching one too many gorror (horror + gory) movies. But that sense of deja vu was totally acute then. In my anxiety-stricken state, I was comtemplating everything from accidentally-on-purpose thrashing the machine (and tearing my ears off in the process) to calling for my mother (Yeah, a fleeting thought, but still a thought nonetheless). I was getting ready to shout when the machine whirred to a halt. Just when the nurse lady stepped back into the room again. And she removed all the prongs. But I can still feel the icky cold plasticky touch of the machine's invasion in my ears. Putting ice cubes in the ears doesn't even come close to how chilling it was then.
And that was just the psychological part.
I was back on the dentist's reclining chair thingy again to have the mold of my crooked jaw taken. He told me in an almost careless manner that "it might hurt a bit". Then without warning, he started fitting metal dentures into my mouth. Apparently, he couldn't estimate the appropriate size of the metal pieces by just looking at it. He kept picking up the OVERLY LARGE pieces and kept trying to fit them into my mouth by stretching the lip skin to inhumane proportions. I'm not being dramatic here. I could have sworn I felt the stretchy bits of skin tear, like when you pull plasticine apart.
When the dentist did for the upper jaw fitting was nothing compared to the lower one. At least the right fit was found quickly enough for the latter. I don't know what was the problem there. Maybe my upper jaw was so oddly-shaped that he had to get the entire basket of metal mold pieces out to find one which doesn't even fit that well.
Then he spread this weird blue clayey mixture on it and jammed the metal
piece into my gums. That HURT like hell. To make things worse, he had to repeat the oral metal smash twice because his reflexes weren't fast enough/mixture wasn't cohesive enough to prevent the blue clay from hardening before molding round my teeth. The metal mold piece had to be pressed down into my jaw too. Because it takes up so much mouth cavity space, I can't frickin move my tongue. My salivary production obviously went into overload in such discomfort. Thank god I hadn't drooled then. But I think I know how a saddled horse feels like now.
Horse-Riding is officially cruel.
Especially when you have to put the metal bit in the horse's mouth in order to attach the whole damn reins contraption. It'll bitchin' hurt.
It has been a good 4 hours since I had metal bits jammed into my mouth. The edges of the lips still ached. I still have the feeling that if I smile now, it wouldn't look like this "\_/" or "V". It'll be all Joker-like. Or droopy at the ends. Then I'll look like some grumpy pedo. Eww.
Perhaps I should start investing in smudgy stage make-up for that clown look now...
End of Rant.
Ok. I havw not idea why, but I hadn't felt like blogging for the past few weeks. And suddenly this psedo-horror dentistry trip made me have verbal semi-diarrhoea. I make no sense and I don't feel like doing logic now. But a list of looooong overdue blogposts recently.
In No Particular Order (Coz I have long since given up on the concept of time)
- End of O' Levels
- Prom Night!
- TPRAWKS 2008
- Bitch Rant of DOOM
- First Job Ever
- Farewell Assembly
- Anime Festival Asia 2008!!!
Ja'. I have a lot to catch up on and I just realised money is really really really important now.
