I consider myself somewhat of a manly man. I like to do physical things. Admittedly, I am not the best at fixing things. But give me a chance to hike, fish and hunt, and I am right there. I have gutted my fair share of fish and deer and various birds and smaller game. Like most outdoors men, I have had a chance to push the limits of my own endurance and then take pride in retelling the experience.
There is, however, one thing that cowers me into a namby-pamby girly-man. It is the site of my own flesh-and-blood’s flesh and blood. The experience of being at the birth of my two sons was not inspiration for me. It was traumatic. The birthing instructor was a bold-faced liar when she cheerily told my wife and me, “Blood? No! There’s almost no blood involved in child birth.” Yeah, right. My wife screaming in pain and the sight of blood sent me into a shock that rendered me mute and useless to my poor wife. Good thing her best friend was there. She took over.
When our two daughters were born at home with a mid-wife, it was mutually decided that my wife would be better off with close friends and family at her side than her husband. And so it came to pass. I do not think I missed anything by not being there to “play catcher”. I enjoyed my newborn daughters shortly after their loudly proclaimed and bloody arrival. They were handed to me clean and pretty as all newly born little girls should arrive into the world, not wrinkly and bloody like my two boys arrived (which, come to think of it, may be a proper portent of things to come).
Our oldest daughter arrived into the world with a sweet tooth. As soon as she learned to totter on her own two feet, she could easily be called to one’s side with the sound of unwrapping candy and gum. Her acute hearing for such sounds was a marvel to everyone. At the sound of any wrapper crinkling, she would come running.
Unfortunately, for the grandmotherly types in our little church at the time, her cuteness and irresistible personality caused them all to disgorge their purses of any gum or candy they had available every Sunday. So, my daughter would return home from church each Sunday looking like she had just gone trick-or-treating on Halloween. For her, every Sunday was Halloween. Church was not a place to find God as much as it was a place to find candy. After she went to bed at night, we would find candy and gum wrappers under her bed and pillow as well as leftover uneaten pieces tightly gripped in her tiny fists as she slept.
This, sadly, did her no favors as she developed really bad cavities in her baby teeth by the time she was three. Several were serious enough to threaten the budding permanent teeth behind them. Thus, we were advised by our regular dentist to take her to see a pediatric dentist to have the cavities taken care of as soon as possible. We made an appointment with one in Gig Harbor, Washington.
I was still a young father then and had not yet learned my physical and psychological limits to familial pain and blood-letting. So, I offered to take my daughter to the dentist. I figured it would be a good father-daughter bonding time as we had an hour-and-a-half drive to the dentist and back again. I loaded her into our little red Subaru wagon and off we went.
After a long drive of noticing the passing scenery, singing to the “oldies but goodies” on the radio and chattering away upon childhood topics, we arrived at a beautiful brand new building. The pediatric dentist’s office was located on the second floor of the building, which had a large, airy open atrium with a glass ceiling and tiled floor with a coffee barista right in the middle of it. As we walked into the main doors, the smell of fresh coffee hung in the air along with the sound of an espresso machine working overtime to satisfy the thirsty and drowsy morning customers.
I decided against the elevator, so we walked up the double stair-flight to the second floor. Soon, we were standing in front of the dentist’s office door. I looked down at my daughter with her blonde golden curls and bright blue eyes. She looked up at me and smiled her big, wide toothy smile full of confidence. I smiled back and opened the door.
The large room we entered was made for children. Bright colors, big toys, cartoon pictures on the walls and balloons decorated the room. There were children playing and parents looking on, smiling, and talking in whispers to other parents. Needless to say, I was impressed. What a great place to bring your very young child to have dentistry work done.
I took my daughter’s hand and we made our way over to the registration counter. After acknowledging our names and appointment, I was handed a clip board with a cord’s worth of firewood for paperwork. I have never liked filling out paper work. But I found a seat with my daughter and started on the hundred’s of questions. Every page needed the same information at the top: name, address, phone number, social security numbers, emergency contact and their numbers and the VIN number of the first car you owned.
I returned the filled-out paper work to the kind lady at the counter and took my seat to wait. It was only a few minutes before a nurse called my daughter’s name and my name. We were escorted into a small dentist’s work room with the same childhood decor that we saw in the waiting room. I thought to my self that it would be fun to work in such a bright and cheery place. Such surroundings couldn’t help but bring out the innocent child in all of us.
Soon, the doctor arrived. She was a very beautiful young doctor, well dressed in a bright yellow colored pant suit that accentuated her red hair. She looked like she was dressed to go to a professional presentation for pediatric dentists, not about to delve into the mouth of my daughter or any other child’s mouth for that matter. Her demeanor and look reflected a person who had it all together with her prefect hair, make-up and clothes.
She smiled sweetly to my daughter, knelt before her and engaged her in a friendly conversation. Soon, she easily maneuvered my daughter up on to the dentist’s chair and was looking in her mouth. I thought to myself, “This lady is good!”
I felt myself relax and more willing to place my daughter into her care. Shortly, she turned to me and explained to me what she was going to do. Then she invited, “Mr. Almberg, you are more than welcome to wait in the waiting room or go downstairs and get a cup of coffee. We will be about an hour.” I thanked her and shook her hand, turned to my daughter with a reassuring smile and kissed her on the forehead, which was returned with that big toothy smile.
Confidently, I left the room, walked through the waiting room and headed to the atrium to the coffee stand. As I made my way down the stairs to the first floor, I crowed to myself how easy all of this was going. The warm fragrance of coffee caught my attention and I was soon focused on getting some caffeine in my favorite latte flavor. It had already been a long day. The appointment was made for early morning so we had been on the road since 6:30 am.
I paid for my coffee and found one of the overstuffed leather couches located near by. I selected one that was situated with the sun coming through the window upon it. I picked up several magazines lying around on various tables and finally settled upon an old dog-eared PEOPLE magazine. I planned on relaxing and enjoying a few moments of solitude before the long ride back home.
Only into the second page of the first article in the PEOPLE magazine, I heard a faint scream come from a far away room. “Wow,” I thought to myself. “That must be what the Spanish Inquisition must have sounded like. Poor person. I wonder where that is coming from…who that is?” There was another scream, but this one more discernible.
Suddenly, a sick feeling came over my stomach as if my latte had been served up with sour milk. I recognized the voice in that scream. There was no mistaking it as another scream echoed through the atrium. It was most certainly my daughter. I looked around at the people scattered around the room. They all looked at one another and then it seemed as if they looked at me with an accusing stair, “How could you!!?” I stuck my nose deeper into the magazine trying to find some anonymity.
I tried to enjoy my latte but, with every piercing cry, it was becoming more difficult. I had given up on attempting to read any magazine articles after the first fifteen minutes went by on the clock. Fortunately, the screams grew more and more less frequent. However, this only tended to add to the tension. The silence in between led to an anticipation of when the next one would come. Just about the time that I thought it would never come after all, there would come another crying echo throughout the building’s chambers.
Pink Wild Flower, Summer 2009 ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)
Finally, I could not stand the suspense any more. I drained my now cold latte and headed up the stairs to the dentist’s office. After a half-an-hour, I was starting to think that they perhaps needed my help. I did not consider what that help could possibly be, but I had to find out any way. I entered the office, only to enter another universe.
As I came through the door, the same calmness that had greeted me the first time was still there. The room had not changed decor, children were happily playing and parents were mildly watching and chatting with one another. “Don’t they know that my daughter is being tortured in there?” I wondered. I went to the front desk.
“Yes, I am Ron Almberg. My daughter is being worked on right now and I am wondering if she is all right.”
The polite lady behind the counter smiled at me and said, “Let me check for you. I’ll be right back.” Then she disappeared around a corner. I could imagine her going down the hall and into the little torture room that they were keeping my daughter in. I waited impatiently for some news.
Finally, after only a few moments, she returned and said, “The doctor said that they have had some difficulty with your daughter but everything is going fine right now. She said she should be done in about 15 or 20 minutes.”
“OK,” I timidly returned. “I’ll just wait over there.” And pointed to a chair in the waiting room.
I took my seat. However, moving into the waiting room only made things worse for me. Not only was the noise level louder, but one could hear the sounds of dentist tools doing their worst. My hands grew clammy and I started to shake.
Just about the time I thought that I could not take any more, all of the noise stopped. After several more minutes passed by, the door to the way to the dungeon opened and out stepped my daughter. Her mouth was stuffed with a few pieces of cotton, her hair mussed up, her eyes almost swollen shut from crying so hard. Later, we discover that she had broken blood vessels in her face from screaming so hard.
I looked up at the doctor as she came through the door behind my daughter. She was the polar opposite of the picture of perfection that I had seen earlier that morning. Her dress suit’s blouse was askew, her fair fell out in several places and the make-up on her face was worn and blotched like she had just come from someone’s funeral. She smiled a crooked but victorious tired looking smile.
“As you probably heard,” she began. “We had some difficulty getting your daughter to settle down so that we could do the work on her. We finally had to put her in what we call a “papoose”. I was able to treat all the real bad cavities; however, we just were not able to get to the lesser ones. I would recommend just monitoring them. As long as they don’t get any worse, she will be fine until they fall out when her permanent teeth come in.”
“Thank you, doctor,” I replied.
Without further comment she turned and disappeared behind the door. “She looks terrible,” I thought. “I wonder if she’ll take the rest of the day off.”
I picked up my daughter with her swollen and Novicained face. We returned to the car for a long ride home. I had planned on stopping in Silverdale for a treat, but she immediately fell asleep in the car and did not awake until we got home. Then I laid down and slept the rest of the day.
The next Sunday, an announcement was put in the church bulletin and made from the pulpit. “Please do not feed the Almberg’s daughter anymore candy of any kind! She had to have cavities filled in her baby teeth this last week. Anyone found doing so will be excommunicated and shunned. May the Lord have mercy upon your soul. The Almberg’s thank you for your help. The pediatric dentists of America thank you.”
Except for one little church grandma lady who turned to sugar-free gum, we had no more trouble with church candy coming home. Thanks to the pediatric dentist who saved her teeth, our daughter, to this day has a wonderful toothy smile. But you will always find a piece of gum stuck in it.
©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)
46.304480
-119.289700
Read Full Post »
Weatherstone's Blog 