My tooth hurt too bad and I didn't have any other choice. I had to brave a Chinese dentist and I had to get to one fast. I noticed a tooth ache starting when I was Japan, sharp pain anytime I opened my mouth too wide or chewed on one side of my mouth. It faded in and out for the most part, but a couple days ago I couldn't handle it anymore. After much speculation I decided it was time to call up Lisa and have her take me to the dentist. She suggested we go to the dentist on campus. I was very skeptical of this plan because I know how Student Health is at WSU, and I couldn't imagine what it would be like here. Well, actually I've never been to student health I just go to Pullman family Medical, but you get the point. They also treated my roommate Kara at the student center here when she had a nasty bout of hives. She ended up having to go to Chengdu anyway because all they gave her was some Reindeer antler or grass or something.
As you can tell from the picture I painted I wasn't all that confident. That on top of one of the busiest weeks I have had in a while I was a nervous wreck. I waited for Lisa at my dorm and before we went we stopped by one of the room's of the foreign students and talked to Lisa's friend, Robina. Robina is from Uganda and she is soooo cool! All the foreigners are cool, they are either from the Caribbean or Africa. I always want to know how they got here to this dirty suburb in this Western province but then I realize that Africa isn't always the best of places either...anyway, Lisa and Robina are both seniors. Seniors at our University don't take classes. They just have a thesis that they have to get done sometime during the year. How awesome is that? Oh and the Chinese are just like us with procrastinating so of course none of them have even started to write it. School is actually way different here and they often come up to Bernie and ask him how they will even possible survive classes in America. You see, at University here classes are only 40 minutes long and they don't have hw...ever. They usually just have one final exam, maybe a midterm. The catch is most of the classes they take are in English so they have to study extra hard just to understand it.
But back to the dentist. Lisa and I walked past the grey buildings, on the grey concrete that meshed in with the grey smog clouds. I had the funeral march playing in my head as the student hospital loomed closer. Lisa spoke some tongues to the women and they led me back to a room with one dentist chair in it. There were about five other kids waiting, and watching some girl get her teeth cleaned. Awesome. Lisa didn't help calm my nerves at all when she kept pointing at the primeval dentist tools the guy kept jabbing at the patients. Finally it was my term and I hopped in the chair and waited for my sunglasses, or earphones like what Dr. Sugamura gives me back home.
Well, as I am constantly reminded China is not America and I did not get any of the usual amenities. Lisa and the Dentist chatted and I told him where it hurt. He started to poke at me with a QTIP. On all my teeth. Open, close, what not. He did this for a good fifteen minutes, then his phone rang. He picked it up, yammered loudly to whoever for a few minutes then resumed the poking with a qtip. Finally he turned to Lisa and said my teeth look beautiful and there is no problem. I wailed and protested. His next idea was that it wasn't my teeth, but my jaw. He thinks that I opened my mouth too wide to bite into an apple. Brilliant! The remedy? Don't eat hard food and massage my jaw. I mean, I got a free appointment so what more was I expecting? I complained more and made a pouty face. He looked excited and then spoke some more to Lisa and made me bite down on some paper. He told Lisa my back tooth sits lower than the others and offered to file down all my teeth for me. As good of an idea that was, I "politely" (shook my head rapidly and hopped out of the chair) declined and we were back out of there. Lisa was so confused by the whole process. She didn't understand why I wanted to go to the dentist if I didn't want anything done.
I did want something done, maybe an X-ray! I explained this to Lisa and she had no idea what I was talking about. So I called Bernie and we reasoned it might be my wisdom tooth. The next morning I skyped with my dentist back home and he laughed. Then he reccomended I go to Japan or Hong Kong to get my wisdom tooth out. I would rather brave the radiation than go to another Chinese hospital so I think I'm going to take his advice and head out in the next week or so! This place, sometimes. I tell ya.
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