RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32663, 20 July 1971, Page 18

RANDOM REMINDER

OPEN WIDE, PLEASE

An appointment with the dentist for. those fortunate enough to possess their own teeth or who are on the point of being deprived of them—is not the most enchanting engagement. Some patients, more phlegmatic than others, but not necessarily more stoical, have the happy faculty of being able to brush aside the encounter, regarding the half-hour or so spent in the usually well - upholstered seat more as an inconvenience than anything else. But there are a few who, notwithstanding modern-day skills in dental surgery and the efficaciousness of pain killing drugs, 'dread the prospect of having to set foot over the dentist’s threshold. Theirs could be

a hereditary complex or one stemming from their childhood days. A lissom little lass from Linwood, who stood in fear of her dentist’s forceps and was unimpressed

with his bulging biceps made an appointment with him last week and has every reason to remember it. For several days she had endured the torment of raging toothache. It had been sheer agony. Her appointment was made for 10.30 a.m. Thoughtfully she left a tray of morning tea for her husband who was away from work because of a fractured bone in his foot and who was hobbling about on crutches. He was thoroughly disenchanted with his surgical boot and the inevitable plaster. But most of all, his immobility. His wife kissed him good-bye and toid him not to worry should she be a little late returning home as she had some shopping to do.

The' young woman arrived early for her appointment, tense and apprehensive. The sounds from within the surgery of a male patient groaning in pain did nothing to

soothe her. Nor did the announcement from the nurse that her appointment would be delayed because of the difficult extractions with which the dentist was involved.

Entwining one leg around that of the chair she occupied, she sat and waited. Twenty minutes later she was asked to enter the surgery. Her leg had gone to sleep and she fell in an inert heap on the carpeted floor. Back at her residence her husband was becoming increasingly disturbed at her late return. He was on the point of telephoning the dentist when he saw a taxi come down the drive. Hurrying out to meet it he met his wife at the corner of the house. She was on crutches, her foot encased in plaster and she was wearing a surgical boot. From her laughter it was evident that both retained that most admirable of traits a sense of humour.