Anticipatory Anxiety

I was finishing a bowl of noodle soup when I felt a funny shift in my mouth.  Stretching my tongue into the direction of the shift, I felt a large crack and my tooth felt loose.  Yikes!  This is not something that I wanted to happen in China, where I had no dentist. Moreover, I was having that sense of panic that if the tooth actually fell, I would suddenly have intense pain.  I also started considering the worst – I would have pain combined with horror combined with a root canal…  In short, I was freaking out.

My daughter sees an orthodontist here in Guangzhou, so I gave them a call and asked if I could be seen today.  They told me to come at 4:00.  Relieved that I would solve this mystery soon, I walked to my classroom to teach my last class of Business and Management.  My eager students were ready to take notes and discuss the topic of the day. I, however, was very cautious about the movement of my mouth. I didn’t want to do anything to cause the loose part of the tooth to actually fall.  This made my teaching a bit distracted.

By the end of the class, an insightful student asked if everything was okay. I had to explain to the class what the expression “freaking out” means – I teach students from all parts of the world, and I wasn’t sure how this translated. Words like worried, crazy and scared came up. They got it.  The student asked, are you sure that the tooth is broken?  I told them I wasn’t, and was too scared to touch it.  It was entirely possible that I was going to the dentist for no reason. But my instinct told me that I was right.

In the past, my instinct (or sense of doom) has proved me wrong. Once last summer I felt a lump in my belly button.  It was so surprising that my mind jumped right to the horrible thought of a growth or tumor.  I tried to see it, but I couldn’t get the right angel. So I yelled for my husband and told him I think I have a growth – can you look? – and threw myself on the bed.  He looked, calmly reaching into my belly button, and said  “you mean this tip of a Q-tip?” 

When I arrived at the dentist, a lovely English speaking man from Hong Kong, gently looked and told me I was correct. My former inlay had cracked and he would remove it and replace it.  He promised me no pain.  He asked would you like me to repair this?  Yes, of course. Do you want to know how much it will cost?  No, I said. He smiled and questioned me, Are you sure you don’t want to know? I feel I need to tell you. I told him I would not be shopping around for this.  4800 RMB he told me.  That’s fine, I said. Just add it to all the money we owe you for my daughter’s braces. For those of you back home, that is approx. $800. Because I have always had good dental insurance in the USA, I have no idea if that is a bargain or expensive. But no matter, I needed it done.

One hour later, with a numb mouth and a temporary inlay, I exited the dentist and found the subway home.  Just another day in the life of an expat in China.