Soul Dose

Alright this is ridiculous, I'm a person, a human being and yes I'm sick but I'm still a person. I had a terrible experience at the dentist that left me with tears and I'm not even big on crying.

My brother and gran took me to a dentist I had never gone to before because I needed to extract the tooth right at the back. I had tried to live with it for over a month but the pain had gotten so bad it was affecting my temper... Maybe you don't know but I woke up with a teeth problem that will require R87 000 to fix or $11 000 roughly. I have a page about it but it's not online yet. I'll talk about this some other time, right now I'm talking about my dentist experience.

So my brother strapped me to my chair and I went in with gran, we gave them my history, told them my tests reveal I'm not allergic to anything, they got my medical aid, heard about my shaking and fainting. In other words they knew everything they needed to know, they also knew doctors can't diagnose my problem.

They started checking my teeth and one nurse had too much perfume, as someone who throws up even when she smells food I started throwing up. That stint passed but was soon followed by the shaking and I passed out. Gran helped me breathe again but as my eyes looked around I noticed the looks on everyone's faces, they were looking at me like I was a freak, an alien, something that had crawled out of the john that morning because they no longer wanted to touch me. As I looked at them I suddenly felt out of place and they saw on my papers that it was fine to extract, they knew the shaking had passed and wasn't gonna hit for some time but they chased me out of there.

My brother was upset and asked is she getting treated like this because of her condition, a condition she can't help? I was already crying and wanted to get in the car. We were in the reception area and all I could think of were the disgusted looks on the nurses and it made me feel like I was worth nothing.

That happened on a Tuesday, so I waited till Saturday for Mom Ndu to take me to the dentist she had taken me to in 2008 and the only reason I hadn't gone to her in the first place was because of my amnesia... When we got there she took out the tooth and she was so nice to me, she looked at me in a normal way and she's got such a good soul. She gave me her number and when I got home I sent a Thank You message and her reply was so sweet.

I'm fine with myself and I'm okay with my condition. Yes it's not what I'd chose for myself and it's not easy but I'm seriously okay with it... Still it hurts when I'm out in public and get looks like those, it hurts and I hope one day the world will look at an ill person (I don't like the word disabled) and see the soul within. Because I'm not my illness, no one is.