I saw stars and the whole of a black hole. The formers were bright and the later, as the name suggests, was black. How did I saw those things? Well, the credit goes to Ajay Shah, a dentist in Kantipur Hospital at New Baneshwor. He gave me the tour of the outer world this evening by putting some spoon and fork like materials inside my mouth and giving terrible pain to my teeth. Oh…I had gone there to seek a swift treatment of a small problem that had arisen in one of my 32, I guess, teeth. (I really do not know how many teeth I have. If that is shame, then let that be. I do not care.) One teeth started behaving abnormally as the surrounding pulp started swelling. Recently terrified by the pilo (boil) on the nose, I thought it was pilo in different avatar. I waited for at least two days to see if the problem gets fixed itself. But this evening, as I finished writing a small piece of news, felt like running to a nearby hospital. Not because it was giving me too much pain, but because I just feel like going. I went and waited for about 15 minutes for the arrival of Ajay Shah.
I though he would just see my teeth and prescribe appropriate medicine. Instead of doing that, his two lady assistants showed me a bed like machine. What the hell these people are going to do with me here? Is this an operation theatre? I really felt like that as the lady pointed me toward the machine. I went, slowly, as if I was worried about the safety of the machine. That was the dental chair, as I was later told by Shah. I sort of conducted a small interview with him as he was giving me terrible pain. The process of cleaning teeth was so painful that Ajay had to inject the medicine to make my lip insensible.
I have heard many stories of the painful process from my Kalyan (father), Meera (mother) and my brother Email. And there I was going through the same experience. The unexpected one. Health is such an issue that you just can’t ignore your doctor’s suggestion. Ajay said I need to clean up my teeth. I couldn’t say no. Okay, I said, as if I was cleaning up my teeth by Close-up toothpaste every morning. Then, after cleaning my teeth, he said that I need to fill up the teeth in question with cement. Why?
Okay, they also performed an x-ray of my tooth. Ajay said there was small problem, like hole and materials stuck into the hole and that need to be filled up. X-ray of tooth was a first experience for me. And I was amazed to see how fast they did that. I had habituated with the long process of x-ray of chest, for example. It would usually take at least 24 hours to collect eh x-ray card and report. There it was instant. Ajay told me that every x-ray was quick but technicians needed to go through the x-ray, prepare the report and that will take time. There, no need of report and technicians. Ajay did all and that’s what happens all the time there, he said.
The filling process was also painful. Its more than four hours and I am still feeling pain. May be, I am experiencing a slight fever. But I ate bhat and tarkari. What else could I do? I couldn’t have stayed hungry for the whole night. Not even aching teeth can bar anyone from eating, I learned.
Now, the original pain has shadowed by the new one. The whole jaws are aching because of the cleanup process. I can feel the original pain of swollen pulp but that, it seems, is hidden under the second layer. Ajay has prescribed me a bag full of medicine. One of them is antibiotic tablet called Amoxycillin. I hate to use such medicine but then I also hate to suffer through pilo-like pain. I have to gargle thrice a day. How do I do that in the afternoon? I think I should carry the medicine with me. Tablets, I can. I have done that before. But now, the bottle. Okay, I am ready.
By the way, before I forget, I think I should mention one thing here. As he was cleaning my teeth and studied the x-ray, Ajay suddenly turned into a byapari (merchant). “You have to fill up the tooth,” he said, “and it will cost you Rs. 1500.” What was I supposed to do? First, I was like punching over his nose. But later I realized that he was just asking my opinion. He wasn’t forcing me for that. I told me that was fine with me. I though I had that much of money in my wallet. No, there wasn’t. I searched through the wallet and managed to find a few hundreds. But in this world of credit and debit cards, the money was just a few meters away. I told them I can bring money immediately. He seemed to be satisfied with 8 or 9 hundred because I have to go see him again in the next few days. The process of filling up tooth has just started. But I went to the ATM machine pulled out a few thousands money and paid Ajay and bought medicines. Later I knew from Email and Meera that I paid too much. The same process could be done at around 7 hundred in a nearby dental center. Okay, no problem, I told them, I just need this problem fixed as soon as possible. And they agreed.
Dinesh Wagle on Nepali Society 