Mental Floss

Here's the saga of Dr. Steve.

As a child, I almost never saw the dentist, my Mom didn't make it a priority. Luckily, I was raised with fluoridated water, and seem to have decent teeth. I don't remember too many problems until I was 20, and my wisdom teeth began to cause some significant pain. I was also fortunate to be working at a job with decent medical and dental coverage at the time.

So someone at work recommended Dr. Steve. I was unsure of how to even behave in a dental office, but his staff seemed nice enough. I walked in to my first appointment to find a short, fat, Japanese man who was limping barefoot in around the office. It was Steve.

He's a warm funny workaholic. Seems he'd been in a car accident that morning, and had sprained his ankle. When the swelling started to slow him down, he just removed his shoes and worked anyway. He decided to clean my teeth himself, as he was "the best technician" he knew, and he wanted to make sure that I didn't have any pain. He ended up having to do the complete cleaning over three visits. When he was done, I had a brilliant smile and was a bit in love with him. No, not like that....I just adored my dentist and wouldn't hesitate to come back. Every cliche and stereotype just wasn't true anymore.

Once we got the maintenance under control, we talked about my wisdom teeth. The x-rays showed that at least one was impacted, so Steve recommended an oral surgeon. I didn't want novacaine, I wanted to be knocked out, so he sent me to Dr. T. I went thru a complete pre-surgical exam before I heard some news about Dr. T's reputation. He worked in a large medical building with a valet garage. The bench downstairs was called the "T Memorial Bench" because of his patients, who often returned to the parking garage pasty white, and unsteady on their feet. That was all I needed. Steve dug a little deeper and found a new surgeon for me.

While the new guy did a fine job, I had some lingering nerve damage on the right side of my jaw. Steve helped refill my Vicodin prescription twice, then took to time to explain just how addictive those pills were. Once again, he was my samurai in shining armour. I went cold turkey, and the nerve stopped hurting not too long after.

I've been going to Dr. Steve for 20 years now, and he's still a workaholic. He's just as friendly as ever, and now my husband sees him too. He won't treat my kids because "well, Jill, the only kid I have to treat is my own".

DH and I went and had our teeth cleaned today. It's over an hour away, and I'll make that drive until I'm 100, if he's still around.