Poetry for the dental soul

May 6, 2013 By Trish Walraven 3 Comments

You know how they say whatever you give to the universe, it will come back to you double? I shoulda been more careful….

This all started about a month ago, and it wasn’t even supposed to be a poem; more like silly prose set to music, but one thing led to another and the darn thing practically wrote itself. Not that it’s art in the sense of revealing the true nature of the human condition, but I thought it was pretty funny and so I shared my little ditty, “The Ballet of the Stray Hair” with a friend, who posted it over here at DentalEggs. You should go there, read it, and then continue on with this story.

Back already? Well, then.

A few weeks later, unsolicited, a little limerick popped up in my inbox from a professor at the college where I took my STATE BOARD EXAM! What do I do? I HAVE to publish it, right? Because if I don’t I’ll keep having those nightmares where my instructors find about a bajillion clicks of subgingival calculus and make me repeat my senior year over and over until finally I get to take my board exam and lo and behold the patient’s teeth are caked with green marijuana stain…. Wait, no, actually, that last part really did happen.

In the middle of all this, I was invited to the Townie Meeting, and something that didn’t happen in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas. It came home as a bug in the back of my brain (it could have been in a worse place, admit it, you thought it!). One of DentalTown’s original masters of meter told me that there were thousands! yes thousands of dental haiku written years ago, almost forgotten behind the cobwebbed threads of the message boards. And I received permission to repost a few of them here.

Hey Universe… thank you?

On to the poetry now.

(be sure to click the link to see why this limerick’s subject is appropriate)

There practiced a dentist in Maine,
Who worked hard, hard as a train,
Esthetics was his love,
But he forgot to glove,
The Boards took his license again.

Dr. Raghu Puttaiah

These haiku are posted in the order of their original appearance. Think movie credits, but with only one actor. It’s kind of a soliloquy, actually.

OSHA training tape
must review for staff to watch
thrice I fall asleep

patient excited
will fix rotten teeth tuesday
oops forgot check book

open wide I say
the assistant turns to retch
oh god it’s anug

brown nubs, baked bean teeth
patient rinses with pepsi
between cigarettes

Lortab seven please
Ultracet is what you’ll get
no? then there’s the door

a long day for me
tears, red-faced child wants father
refer to pedo

“just so you know Doc,
I don’t like things in my mouth!”
Not even your brush?

your teeth are rotting
hurting, stinking, and all loose
“Can I get them bleached?”

two rough sedations
why did he eat that breakfast?
vomit in the sink

other doc’s patient
MFLI composite
should I steal him? No.

I hate most endo
boring snoring tedious
oh crap! broke a file.

started root canal
paid in full but won’t come back
on mom’s credit card

can you get it out?
well, there’s nothing left but root…
do I need a shot?

why do I do them?
the tooth is buried in bone
sadomasochist

zoom day white excel
left it in my trays too long
teeth are white, but ouch!

silver point canal
retreatment necessary
ultrasonic? yes.

perio abcess
white purulent exudate
debride and Trimox

smoke? get dry socket
I pack some gelfoam in there
maybe it helps some

appointments not kept
what is wrong with these people?
next time I’ll not show

what’s that dark shadow?
it’s peri-implantitis
periodontist

DENTURE PATIENT

This plate doesn’t fit!
he looks at the wall photo
I want ’em like that!

Immediate teeth
he wanted them yesterday
expects perfection

I don’t understand!
why is this taking so long?
this stuff makes me gag!

my old teeth were fine!
except that they were rotten…
“You should have brushed them”

EXTRACTIONS

cold steel and sunshine
former captive relinquished
clink clank shiny bowl

cotton gauze poultice
damming the flow of red life
platelets, activate

By no means is this collection complete! These were my favorite dental-themed haiku, and even though I didn’t check them carefully they all seem to follow the traditional 5-7-5 syllable rule. If you adored these like I do and want more from those who haven’t given me permission to share, go on over to this DentalTown thread, become a member if you haven’t already, enjoy the sometimes poignant ramblings of a bygone time, maybe even hold a revival and start a new poetry post if you’re inspired thusly.

And I promise, no more poems about hair from me!

UPDATE:

Darn! She made it private! what? The poem that I wrote. So I guess that means I’ll have to host it my own dang self here.

The ballet of the stray hair.

Watch my fingertips: nimbly they fly
along the lip line, touching on cusps
to steady their course
while their grasp guides a mirror and a probe.

Their orchestration is captured in full spectrum detail
Thanks to a pair of magnification loupes
And a headlight emanating from my third eye area.

Previously unnoticed, a black line of evil
begins to uncoil away from the mirror handle
and adheres itself to the tacky vermillion border.
The spectre of horror becomes threefold alarming
When I realize that the patient is a blonde.

At this point I’m not wondering of its origins
as much as trying to get rid of the hair
before the patient becomes aware.

My ring finger attacks
in its pale latex slicker.
Success! I have liftoff
And a wipe to the napkin
Surely means that the hair is gone.

Worky-work, cleanie-clean.
WTF? It’s back! This time on the tongue!
Damn that static cling.
The hair is mocking me.

Time to go all Wile E. Coyote on its ass.
Quick glance to the patient’s eyes.
Total obliviousness. Good.
The snare is laid
between my suction tip and modified pen grasp.

Crap. The hair went halfway IN the saliva ejector
and now it’s acting like a telephone cord
that doesn’t want to wind straight.
OMG. Hair s t r e t c h e s before it breaks.

Two big black hairs in my patient’s mouth.
Two big. Black. Alien hairs.
It’s time for a gauzy intervention.
“I got a little messy, here, let me clean you up!”
With the force of a primary tooth extraction
times two
the hairs are gone.
They are gone for sure
because I took the two pieces of gauze
over to the wastebasket
and personally dumped them
and checked my static latex fingers afterwards.

We both sigh.
Worky-work, cleanie-clean.
Really? A booger?
Hanging halfway out of the patient’s nose?

I sure hope that’s not someone else’s, too.

Videos of bad hollywood choppers

January 17, 2013 By Trish Walraven 3 Comments

Bad Hollywood Teeth have been one of the things that REALLY GET UNDER MY SKIN and because I have a place to express it like the swollen fistula that it is.(!)… Well, here we are.

No, I’m not talking about the ones that are NATURALLY bad. This time we’re going to admonish the actors that couldn’t overcome their dentition additions. Watch the videos below to see what I mean.
Do you remember Steven Spielberg’s “Hook?” I do, for the wrong reasons, and while Dustin Hoffman received positive reviews in this role, the way he would press his lower lip on his false teeth made me cringe every time the camera closed in on him.

Emma Thompson’s Nanny McPhee has the same problem, only it’s with a single tooth this time. I know, I know, she’s supposed to look ugly! But does she have to slide her lip under her snaggle so intentionally?

And then there’s the ever-creepy Mad Hatter, endowed with a careless lisp by Johnny Depp.

I actually love that Austin Powers pokes fun at his OWN teeth in this clip, while also emphasizing the need to carry floss and toothpaste into dire situations. Even so, the prosthetics never seem to quite fit in Mike Myers’ mouth.

Not only will you get to see a green (as in young, not as in tree-hugging) Ed Begley Jr. sucking on his fake braces, you to hear one of his best-delivered lines ever. Real Genius is classic 80’s cheese in a yummy Val Kilmer sandwich and this is one of the funniest scenes of the movie.

Next time you see a film where an actor is doing naughty things with his teeth, remember the catharsis you felt when you came here and realized that you weren’t alone with your annoyance, because it reminded you of the reluctant denture patients that really, really need new ones but they let the old ones schlep around in their mouths anyway. And when you feel that feeling again at the movies, be sure to come back here and share it so that it can be featured in a future article.

Don’t know about you, but I feel like someone should prescribe me an antibiotic after all this squeezing.

Creepy dental mannequin calendar

December 6, 2012 By Trish Walraven 2 Comments

This holiday season, don’t you know someone who would appreciate the Photoshopped finesse that can only be found in a printed new year calendar? Especially if they are aficionados of the lip-less look of their favorite Dexter, typodont, or other practice mannequin.

It’s bad enough that we all had to hover over these our first semester of dental school. Now they’ll be entering your dreams in an Inception-like takeover of your subconscious fears. NO! YOU NEVER GRADUATED AND YOU MUST SAY THANK YOU FOR THE UGLY WALLET FROM THE FAKE EVIL WOMAN YOU MARRIED!

Please tell me that you don’t really want one of these calendars. If you insist, it is available at this link here at Practicon, for pretty cheap, for a gag, for someone you pretend to like but just want to oog out really really bad.

Or you can just browse the rest of the calendar here. Do it quickly. Don’t linger. Because the longer you look, the more you’ll begin to question reality.

And if the nightmare above actually does describe your current marital situation, sorry, wasn’t trying to dis on your spouse. But you may want to consider this a wake-up call.

Incoming!

November 9, 2012 By Eva Watson Leave a Comment

Good news, colleagues!

Our chances of pee-pee and va-jay-jay injuries is greater than that of accidental dental injuries!

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/11/09/genital-harm-more-common-than-dental-injuries-study-shows/

So, before you start laughing to yourself about that ten-year-old pedo patient that got his central incisor horrifically knocked out during a friendly game of blindfolded dodge ball please think about the apparently, chronic-happening alternative– your kid’s foot that emphatically missed the soccer ball during the big game and made a B-line straight into the pecker of another player.

Let’s be careful out there.

Patients: Floss Your $%#*^@# Teeth!

October 17, 2012 By Eva Watson 10 Comments

Now… don’t let the title of this piece make you cower into your stinky underpants drawer.

My intention is to simply explain the importance of why you lovely patients must floss your teeth. After seven years of clinical experience and seeing the outcome of a non-flossing lifestyle, my hope is that those reading this highly important dental topic will gain the vital understanding of flossing and how gum disease will affect your life.

Let’s start by me asking for your full attention by you getting your crusty, Starbucks-stained teeth out of your $8.00 latte you really can’t afford but feel the urge to economically consume every, single morning before you go to your soon-to-be outsourced job that just increased your dental insurance premium for a minute because here’s what I have to tell you.

Are you ready? Good.

If you don’t floss your gums will become a festering, disease-ridden, smorgasbord of unrelenting bacteria that will ultimately make your gingivae bleed in buckets every, single day of your life. If you don’t floss your gums you will spend thousands (I’m not kidding) of dollars to simply control the incurable disease (and it is a disease) that you have let build up over years and years of utter neglect.

Exudate will ooze out from underneath your gums and after questioning by the clinical professional (How YOU doin’?) the finding(s) will be defined as ‘asymptomatic’. That is, you will feel no pain. What you will feel is the false sense of dental health with the perpetual lie you keep telling yourself when you think, “It doesn’t hurt,” while the blood-filled pus continues to bubble and percolate underneath your gums.

Allow me to continue.

Your social life will remain that of the lonely-lived bachelor/bachelorette whose breath completely, I mean, completely reeks so intensely, you will have no realistic chance of any dating prospects. You will continue to waste money on the premium whitening kits at your local store to give off the illusion of a healthy mouth in the hopes of attracting a mate. Your highly offensive, (Not joking. It’s awful.) metallic-smelling breath from your lack of flossing is so oppressive no one will want to kiss you nor come within five feet of you. (Yes. The odor is that strong.) And we can still smell it through the masks we wear. Sorry.

Once your teeth become mobile, or loose, from the lack of flossing and the prolific bacteria eating away at your bone that supports your teeth, then, and only then, will you notice and mention the finding to your dentist and/or dental hygienist. (Hey, that’s me!) You will hear the word ‘unsalvageable’. You may even hear the word ‘hopeless’. That means your loose tooth/teeth will have to be pulled out from your rotting mouth because you were lazy and didn’t floss.

You’ve just lost your tooth… which could have been prevented if you only had used that little piece of string.

Sleep tight.

UPDATE:

The ballet of the stray hair.

Article Archives

Contact Us

Follow DentalBuzz on Social Media