One of the benefits of living in Belgium -as put to me by my g/f- is that Belgium has an excellent health care system. I had no reason to doubt this, up until last Friday that is.
I needed an urgent dental appointment so Sarah lined me up with a local dentist that we pulled from golden pages. She was told that there was no need to make an appointment and that it should be ok to just drop in. Sarah thought at the time that that was a bit strange; unfortunately it wasn't enough to ring any major alarm bells.
Now, I'm not one to prejudge people...that much…but upon arrival at said practice, to say that the outside was more akin to a funeral parlour was a bit of an understatement. Sarah brushed this off with "that's a *ahem* kind-of standard front shop for a Belgian dentist *ahem*"
Owkaaay.
We walked through the front door and the smell of cigarrettes instantly smacked us in the face. We find the waiting room with; you guessed it, no other waiting patients. We’re then greeted by an older man in a white coat with jeans and a fag in his hand. His appearance did nothing to instill confidence.
As he continued to smoke, I whispered to Sarah that if he asks, I'm here on holiday and we’re only here for a diagnosis and no more! Taking another draw of his fag, he gestures for me to sit in his dentist chair. Glancing down at the chair I notice a huge slash mark in the head section and some very antiquated looking tools to the right. He’s still smoking and now I’m really panicking!
He pulls the light overhead to inspect my mouth. He explains to Sarah in Dutch that my tooth is fine - relief! However, I become aware of a burning sensation on my delicate alabaster skin, which then breaks out into a small sweat. This is not nerves dear reader; this is me being burned by the ancient overhead light. Surely there must be regulations for melanoma inducing lights?!
And the radiation didn't stop there. He decided that it was best to take an x-ray of my gum. In the mean time he declared that I had an infection in my gum, possibly caused by a filling that was too close to my nerve. And you wonder why Brits have a reputation for dodgy teeth! After his postulation, he began, rather forthrightly, to question me on the causes/symptoms/treatments for bacterial infections.
Now, to give further insight, this guy was a paratrooper until 2 years ago, so you can imagine the military interrogation style that his questions took. Still having to cope with being burnt and the prospect of his fag fingers going in my mouth again, I was in no mood for being questioned. I was after all the patient, and he the dentist. I popped out a few pathetic nonchalant answers to which he was not impressed. This was when Sarah regressed into school mode. She had all the answers he was looking for and more! I think she even put her hand up once or twice to answer a question and I was thankful that the attention was removed from me and onto her. She appeared to be quite enjoying the bullet round of questions and answers.
Yes, back to the x-ray. He brought out this machine that would look more at home on a Marvin the Martian Looney Tunes cartoon. The X-ray confirmed his original diagnosis. Thank goodness for that, no more questions and answers.
Lesson learned: ask for recommendations for local dentists first before randomly pulling one from the golden pages and never, NEVER, visit one that doesn't need an appointment of sorts!
So it would appear that I'm rather inept when it comes to the fine art of posting. I sent a slightly belated bday card to Annika last week to discover it in my letter box saying:
