For almost 3 months, my tongue had fun poking the irritable hole in my upper molar. But after the recent week-long of excruciating pain and Panadol grogginess, I finally psyched myself up to see a dentist.

I have 3 fears in life (excluding my greatest fear of calamansi).

1. Rape. 2. Barrenness. 3. Dentists

When I was a child, I had very traumatic dental experiences. In the province during the 90’s, you don’t get to see child-friendly dental clinics with colorful tooth-shaped candies smiling at you. You get a little white room with big drilling machines and a stern-looking dentist saying “tsk, tsk” at every cavity found inside your little mouth.

Adding to that scary picture is my mom’s voice consistently saying “pull it out” to the dentist. She, during those times, had no sense of saving a tooth. The only option for every painful tooth was extraction. I guess I had a total of 8 extractions before I reached age 10. Most of them were cases of complicated “hard-headed” roots that called for repeated anesthesia injections and heavy drillings as the dentist perform numerous acrobatics and I hold on to dear life.

Imagine the terror I had to go through. Up until now, every dental visit was a very painful one – tears, saliva and blood all together. It would take me days to recover and go back to normal life.

Yesterday was a breakthrough in my dental agony. I took the 2-hour bus trip to Sharjah to a dentist recommended by a friend. At 8:00 pm, I was the last patient of the day but I was surprised to see a very “alive” dentist who greeted me with a smile like those of an airplane cabin crew. He asked me the problem, examined my tooth, explained to me the procedure in a calm reassuring voice. As he stood above me sipping coffee from his Philippine mug, all tension eased out of me.

In less than 30 minutes, the good-looking foreign dentist (who spoke perfect English, called me by name and explained everything he was doing) cured my life-long dental trauma. There was no pain, no blood and definitely no tears. For the first time in my life, I stood up from the dental chair, not an animal but a dignified human being!

The fun part is, I got a letter from him telling my boss that I needed to go back after a week for the next procedure.

Oh boy, am I excited!

P.S. Oh and I forgot to mention, he gave me a generous discount. Only for Kabayans, he said.

P.S.S. Thank you to these crazy people. You can make escorting terrified dental patients a career.