I admit it. I am petrified of the dentist. There is a long saga there, involving a bad dentist, a brace, blood and tears, but it boils down to a terror of dentists. I want to scream when the needle goes into the gum and long for the days when they used to give a patient laughing gas. Seven years ago, I happily spent a year in pain from two crumbling wisdom teeth simply so that I could have them and another one (which had managed to grow horizontally along the line of my jaw instead of vertically out of it) out under general aenesthetic. Just knock me out and do the work.

I have a dentist appointment this afternoon. I know there is going to be the minimum of one filling, possibly an extraction as well. I didn't concentrate on my work all yesterday and I fell asleep probing every tooth with my tongue and panicking. Due to the fact you can't get an NHS dentist to save your life down here, I'm going to the NHS 'emergency dentist' at the hospital. The last time I was in a hospital for my teeth, they chipped a bit of my jawbone away in order to remove the horizontal wisdom tooth. My jawbone has a dent in it due to dentistry...

Unsurprisingly, I am a bit nervous.

update: just two fillings! woo! admittedly, one involved so much rebuilding work I'm not sure how much actual tooth is left but I survived. The numbness has worn off so I just need to find the serious ibuprofen and I'll be fine...