When I was 12, I was told that the tooth had a small cavity and needed filling. Because of not liking previous experiences of teeth being filled, I refused to cooperate with the school dental nurse, so she was unable to fix the tooth. Previous fillings had always been very painful, even with local anaesthetic. The dental nurse was also known for poking people in the lips with that sharp thing when just checking their teeth.

Since I was 14 or 15, this tooth has given me constant problems. I had been to the dentist a couple of times to get it refilled and stuff, but that was still scary and not too successful. Recently it had gotten to the point where I couldn't even concentrate on my university postgraduate studies, so one of my professors ended up pressuring me to get it pulled out, and helped me with talking to the dentist about it and stuff (In the computer science department at my university, the professors care a huge amount about the students; the department is a pretty tight community). Being a molar tooth, I knew it wouldn't come out easily, and my gums around it would need to be cut open which terrified me.

I don't know how I managed it, but on Wednesday I went in to have it pulled out. I was given light sedation half an hour beforehand (some sedation pills), but was still alert for the whole thing. When it was time to start, I asked the nurse to tie my scarf around my eyes. I then sang from the back of my throat the whole time, and the other people in the room (Dentist, nurse, and another person from computer science there as morale support) guessed which songs I was trying to sing, and I held my thumbs up if they guessed correctly. That silly "game" actually kept me amused the whole time. Everybody laughed when I asked at the end "Were any knives used???" and the answer was yes, and I was surprised.

Afterwards, I was allowed to spend my recovery time sitting in the tea room of the computer science department so all the people there could distract me to help keep my mind off it. By the next day, I was actually able to do my work as the pain wasn't too bad!

It is such a huge relief that one of the biggest sources of physical and emotional pain for the last 10 years of my life is gone. I'm really happy I went through with it, and really grateful to those who pushed me into doing so.