Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

An almost faint

Long before I ever set foot in a hospital, I asked myself curiously just how strong a stomach I had. I wondered if I could take the spattering of blood, the smell of oozing infection, or the deformed sight of broken bones. I can tell you now comfortably that none of those bother me, but there is one thing I cannot stand - dental work.

My dislike for all things dental branches back to my childhood I suppose - I imagine there's some psychological term for that, but I simply classify it as a case of familiarity breeding contempt. After the baby teeth that refused to fall out and their forcible extraction, the adult teeth that then refused to come in and their forcible coaxing down into place, the 4 wisdom teeth out and what seemed like endless years of braces, shaping devices and retainers - dental and I simply do not get along.

I was abruptly reminded of just how much we dislike each other one very long afternoon on the third floor of our surgery building, tucked away on the corner of campus and bearing a cornerstone from the 1920s. My patient was in for a pre-operation check - we were escorted to a typical dental room, and I had no idea why my patient was even there until the doctor came in to check him over. It's amazing how very little interpreters know and how much we figure out by just being present at the appointments. Questions that make absolutely no sense to me usually make perfect sense to my patients and doctors, and I suppose that's why it's so important for us to stick to exactly what is said and play that machine-like roll of simply interpreting. But I digress.

Apparently my patient, who we will call José for anonymity's sake, was a security guard of sorts at a factory, and had gotten himself into a fight which left his upper teeth hanging on by threads. The ER had patched up what they could, attaching a metal bracket to keep the teeth in place until he could get an appointment to have surgery. The doctor was adamant - those brackets had to come off, now, and they'd put something temporary back on to keep the teeth in place.

I was standing across the room, doing my normal interpreting, when it started. Click, click, twist. Wire clippers clashing on wire brackets; snips, slips, and little tugging sounds. I could feel him pulling on the teeth, fighting with the stubborn metal. My stomach started protesting, and I could feel it rising against my lungs, pushing on my chest and making it hard to breathe. I turned slightly and saw a picture in pastels close by. I'm sure it was a lovely picture, but to this day, I couldn't tell you if those were flowers or triangles scattered across the canvass. Focus on the picture...flowers, they look like flowers. I like flowers. I could hear my brain trying to convince my stomach that this wasn't a big deal. Click, snip, twist. My, those are gorgeous pastels. José doesn't seem to mind, I thought ruefully, why should I? It was one painful thought at a time, forcing my ears to forget what they were hearing. Memories of every wheezing, whining drill I'd ever dreaded, every screaming whir of electric toothbrushes, every nails-on-glass scraping of instruments on my metal mouth, came pouring in like floodwater over a broken levee. Breathe. Concentrate on the picture. Good.

"You can sit down if you need to." I snapped out of my forced reverie to find the doctor looking at me curiously. I must have been very white, because he continued, "I don't want you to faint." I've promised myself I shall NEVER faint from mental weakness, so I smiled and told him I was fine. Back to one painful thought pushing the next forced thought through my brain.

I had a good laugh at myself afterwards. I imagine there are very few people who almost faint watching a dentist, and even fewer who are stubborn enough to refuse a chair and admit they're queasy. I did learn the real strength of mind over matter, and I suppose as long as I got the lesson well ingrained, it doesn't matter how silly I was getting there.

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