The Dentist

Today was Big Girl's dentist appointment. In order to accurately tell the story of the day, I must start with the minute I walked in the door from Field Day on Friday. It was about 12:30. There was a message on the machine from the pediatric dentist's office saying that the insurance company needed a referral in order to authorize the coverage. Don't you just love "insurance speak"? Ugh. That message was left at 11:30ish and their office closes at noon on Friday, so whatever questions I had couldn't be answered until this morning.

How early is "first thing"? I thought 8:17 was early enough to call and have my question answered, and have plenty of time to follow through with whomever I needed to call next, and have everything in place for the appointment at 12:30. From whom do we get a referral from, the pediatrician or our adult dentist? Well, I started calling at 8:17. The phone rang and rang, until finally a female automated voice came on the line saying, "We're sorry. All our circuits are busy. Please try your call again later." After the first few times I heard this message (which came on after 31 rings, I counted), I started to get perturbed. I called for over an hour straight. I'd hear that message, hang up and then hit redial. At 9:30, I was fed up. I got Little Girl dressed and into the car, and drove over to the dentist's office. Surely they couldn't ignore me if I was right there in front of them.

I have great trepidation about dentistry. I don't like to go to the dentist. I have avoided the dentist for years at a time in the past, and I'm currently overdue for a cleaning by about a year. I REALLY hate going. It's not that I've had some horrible, painful stuff done even. I have had a little work done, when a filling I got as a kid had a crack in it and I had a cavity under the filling. I just hate getting the shots in my mouth, and even just having my mouth open that big and someone's hands in there, I just don't like any part of it.

I also have great trepidation about messing with Big Girl's expectations. I'm already throwing a money-wrench into her day by taking her out of school in the middle of the day. She is expecting me to go get her. If something is wrong with the insurance coverage, and this trip to the dentist isn't going to happen, it's too late for that to be no big deal to my Big Girl.

And then add to the stress of those things having the phone ring and ring and ring for over an hour. I just had a simple question. After a while I was thinking, "Why didn't the person who left me that message give me a direct extension?" "How many people do they have answering phones?" "How can any office of any kind have customer service this bad?"

When I got there, I tried to keep myself in check. By then I was really in a tizzy, and it wasn't going to happen. I went in and asked for the office manager. She quickly ushered me into a little room where I could tell her what had happened that morning without everyone in the office hearing me. It was a very good and professional move on her part, quite counter to the impression I had based on the phone ringing and ringing. She answered the question I had, which was not that big a deal, but everything was a big deal at that point. She was surprised to hear of the phone woes, saying that she would try calling in from her cell phone to see if there was a problem with their phone system. She went through their system with me, who is responsible for checking messages and when that happens. At the most, their system is only supposed to ring 4 times and then it goes to voice mail, and after 50 messages, it's supposed to tell the caller that the voice mail box is full. That never happened to me. I would have been so happy to leave my question on a voice mail.

After about 15 minutes, she said the phone number, and it turned out, I heard xxx-3331 on the message, but the dentist's number is xxx-2331.

I felt so bad. I apologized. I may have even cried a little, I don't remember.

On my way out, I picked up the forms that I'd have to fill out later, so getting in would be a little quicker.

I went back home, fed Little Girl lunch, got Big Girl from school and went back to the dentist.

I was a nervous wreck. Not only was it a trip to the dentist, it was Big Girl's first time. I was transferring my feelings to her, and then adding in her sensitivity to the sounds of dentistry, and I expected a gigantic tantrum. None of what I worried about happened. Little Girl wanted a turn and nearly threw a fit about that, but in the end was distractable enough to be managed. Of course, adding to my nerves was the embarrassment of what had happened earlier.

Big Girl did great. She stayed still for x-rays, cooperated beautifully for the cleaning, and was a fantastic patient all around. She has no cavities, and the thing I was most worried about, the baby tooth with the permanent tooth coming in behind it, is starting to loosen up. It will fall out on its own, and not have to be pulled! Hooray!

I'll forever be "that crazy lady". Not my finest moment. But at least all that mess happened in time for everything to go as smooth as silk when Big Girl was there.

I didn't appreciate the dig made by the office manager on our way out after Big Girl's appointment. That was unnecessary. Like that will ever happen again... We may just have to find another dentist.

Song in my head right now is (quite appropriately), "My Stupid Mouth," by John Mayer.