| Sunny Side Up July 6, 2005 �2005, Kathleen Gibson Moving past paralyzing fear The news reported recently that women are more likely to admit fear of dentists than men. Count me in. Those appointments, no matter how distant, loom over my psyche like the apocalypse over lapsed Christians. I can't escape the feeling of impending doom. For good reason. I have issues with dentists. One of my past practitioners, when I said, 'AHHH' to him for the first time, drew back and blurted, "Gracious, you have teeth like a horse!" I don't, really. They're quite proper, just rather multitudinous, and close together. When the Preacher and I first married, I needed dental work. To save money, I made an appointment at a nearby university's dentistry school. A sign near my chair clearly instructed students to check each procedure with a supervisor. My cocky student ignored it - put my pearly-whites into such trauma that even the sight of a dental office terrorized me for months. I finally screwed up the courage to make an appointment with a real dentist to finish what the Dentist in Training (henceforth the DIT) had started. Perched nervously in the chair, I watched the door, my heart thumping. To my dismay, the dentist who walked in the room could have passed for the DIT's twin. I sat bolt upright and shouted, "How old are you? What's your name? Where did you take your training?" He took a step backwards. Swallowed, came forward, answered all my questions. Then asked one of his own: "Why are you so terrified?" I told him about the DIT - the repeated insertion and removal of a single large filling, needle after needle of freezing - four hours worth - and my ultimate end: rolling, screaming, on the front passenger side floor of our car, praying for mercy or death. He didn't laugh. And he didn't work on me that day. Instead he told me about his family, showed me pictures. Then he talked about his practice: where he'd taken his training, when he'd graduated, and how important he felt it was to treat his patients like friends; to make their experience pain-free and positive. He remained my dentist for the next six years. None of his treatments hurt. However, when we moved, my nervousness returned. The new dentist couldn't understand it, so reluctantly I explained my history. He walked to a corner shelf, took down a large teddy bear he apparently kept for worried children, and handed it to me. I hugged it and prayed through that and every subsequent appointment. I still dread dental appointments. My current dentist is a teddy bear himself, and always very gentle, but I don't seek him out till I must (to the hygienist's frustration.) Because I'm so very human, I reflect often on Jesus' days on earth. I believe he knows all about paralyzing fear - must understand why sometimes we mortals act in ways others find incomprehensible. I think he even doesn't mind when we sometimes have to hold teddy bears and pray at the same time. Respond Home |