I've been under various kinds of pressure in my life. The pressure of a deadline, the pressure of a baby on the way or the pressure of waiting for the diagnosis of a loved one. There's the pressure of getting all of the various components of a meal served all together, with everything on-time; let's include the pressure in the steamer used to assure the flash-steamed veggies are cooked to perfection. There's the pressure of waiting for news of an international meeting or the outcome of a distant battle...
1969 - A Little Pressure
“Looks like you’ve gotten some wisdom teeth in need of removal,” the doctor said. I had gone to the Dixie (AD-14) for some dental work. As a repair ship they rarely got underway usually moving from one “permanent” port to another. This time we were in Sasabo, Japan. “Your wisdom teeth are deforming the placement of your other teeth. Your mouth just isn’t big enough for all those teeth… they’re gonna have to come out.”
I wasn’t concerned. I had had mostly good experiences with dentists. This, despite experiences with my boyhood dentist. More about that in a moment, but, for now, I had no concerns. “Ok. Let’s go for it,” I said preparing my head for some invasive dentistry.
The dentist left to prepare an anesthetic and prepare his instruments for the upcoming work. In a few minutes he came back with the tray of needles, anesthetic and instruments he would be using on my teeth. Seeing the tray brought me back to my boyhood dentist and an incident that has stayed with me all these years.
Our family dentist was a fellow Moose Club member and was used by many members. He had a second-story office downtown Zion so Mom would drop me off and do her shopping, stopping by later to pick me up and continue home. I still recall every time a dentist arrives with the tray my boyhood dentist arriving with a similar tray although his was slightly different from any tray I had seen since as my boyhood dentist always, every single time, brought a big horse needle and syringe which always was accompanied by remarks that drew my attention to the big instrument. After a few minutes of threatening and joking he would put it away and hit me with the much smaller and much more appropriate needle. I’ve often thought back to those days and wondered why he used the same tired joke every time. I’ve come to the conclusion he thought seeing this huge instrument served to help calm the patient when the actual needle was revealed.
I’m not sure how valid this tactic would be as it mostly just scared me and I didn’t see any relationship between the fake and the real. In fact the time I am recalling he had done his horse-needle thing and laughed and joked about it until he told me to open in preparation for the procedure. I noticed he hadn’t given me any pain-killer but assumed he knew what he was doing and I probably didn’t need any for whatever he was going to do. He had fired up the drill when I heard Mom in the outside office. “Doctor! Doctor!”
He shut the drill off and rolled off his stool into a standing position, after which he walked to the front office. As his was a 1-man operation, there was no receptionist so he had to respond personally. I heard mom tell Doc that I had forgotten my jacket then the conversation got quieter and more difficult to hear. Next thing I knew Mom was standing next to the chair and telling me to put my jacket on, we were leaving. I was later to find out, overhearing the adult conversation that evening, that the smell I simply figured as the doctor’s standard breath was whisky. We changed dentists after that although I have no recollection of the new dentist… probably because he didn’t use the horse-needle joke and was competent enough to give me no unpleasant memories.
I was drawn back to my situation on the Dixie. The doctor instructed me to open wide and he shot me with the appropriate amount of Novocain. After a few minutes he began working on my mouth and I relaxed into the chair with eyes closed and feeling very comfortable as, like I mentioned previously, dentists, despite my early experience with one, never bother me. I remain this way to today although even this removal didn’t go as smoothly as I had assumed it would go. I week later I would begin to feel the pressure of a dry socket and retuned to the dentist who saw no problems and released me to go back to work in preparation for some time at sea. A dry socket was later explained to me as a pocket of air that has been trapped inside the wound as it healed over the top. I was told the air inside the wound prevented the internal healing and caused the incredible amount of pain I was feeling. As I was at sea for around 30-days it was a miserable 30-days during which the ship’s doctor looked at the problem but could not see anything that caused him any concern. I was in a constant fog resulting from the pain but still managed to get my job done as required. This continued until one day before leaving the gun-line for a friendly port, and standing in the chow line, I noticed what I thought was a piece of steak, from our last meal, stuck between a couple of back teeth. Gripping it with my fingernails I pulled it time and time again failing each time to get a grip that would hold as I tried to pull the invader from between my teeth. I had been trying this obsessively off and on for a few hours but was always unsuccessful in getting a good grip until, this time; I managed to get a firm grip… and jerked.
Pain!! Sharp pain!! Then... hu.hu.huh... relief... Amazing, comforting, warm, happy relief. I had pulled the stitch out of the socket and the constant dull throbbing pressure that caused the constant pain had disappeared. I was told I had a huge smile showing through my bloody lips. The blood stopped almost immediately and the socket healed perfectly within a couple of days, but all of this was still to come and I, having no ability to read the future was still relaxed in the dentist’s chair as he worked away on my impacted wisdom tooth. He had pulled and pulled to no avail announcing that my roots must so long they must be wrapped around my “damn jawbone.” He left for additional instruments and the excitement of the work stopped and I relaxed back into what was quickly becoming a gentle doze. I absently noticed his continuing efforts almost as a disinterested party as he tried one thing after another, stopping at one point to renew the anesthetic, then continuing on after a few minutes to let the new batch of pain-killer take effect. I absent-mindedly noticed he wasn’t having much success when he got my attention by saying “Well, we’re not having a lot of luck with this tooth. We’re going to have to break it up to get it out.”
That didn’t sound particularly good but I didn’t have much of a reaction until he said “There’s going to be some pressure here.” Now THAT got my attention because by now I knew that when a dentist said “pressure” they very probably meant “pain.” I roused myself slightly so I was prepared when I felt the sharp blow. Another! And again! “This isn’t working,” he said, “we’re going to have to try something else.” He paused. “Ok. There’s going to be a little pressure,” he announced.
I thought “He already said that,” so when I felt a weight on my chest I was understandably surprised. I opened my eyes to see my dentist with a mad-determined look on his face. My vision was partially blocked by his hand that was wrapped around what appeared to be a chisel and his other hand, the one containing the little metal mallet, was on the upswing high over his head. The pressure on my chest was HIS KNEE! The knee was placed directly in the middle of my chest and his other foot rested on the foot rest we now easily shared as my short legs caused my feet to barely touch the foot-rest.
Wham!!
Wham! Wham! Wham!!
After the third blow the knee came off and I heard the mallet hit the tray. I opened my eyes and closed them quickly when I saw the blood splattered across his chest. “Ahh, success.” He murmured.
The assistant quietly agreed, “Yeah. That was a tough one.”
I sat listening in a slight state of shock having witnessed, from close proximity, mad violence upon my person… Yeah, ok… just my mouth. But, believe me, my whole body was involved. Sore muscles and a still vibrating jaw proved that fact.
He and his assistant then worked quietly pulling various sized shards of tooth out of my mouth. Although the pain-killer was working well I could still feel the pull and release from each piece of tooth. Watching, now fully alert, I saw a small pile of enamel bits and pieces growing on his tray. After a little while he finished up and put in the stitches that would shortly result in that dry-socket. For now I was fine but I don’t think I’ll ever assume, again, what a dentist means when he says “There’ll be a little pressure.”
Yeah, right… a little pressure.
