Dr. Doom – My Jailhouse Dentist
For nearly 14 years, I've helped individuals navigate the complex landscape of addiction in order to achieve recovery. Nicknamed "The Casual Counselor", my approach is unconventional but undeniably effective.
Roy had knocked out a filling in one of my top molars during our scuffle. Within a few days, I was in serious pain. I'd be okay during the daytime, but in the evenings, around bedtime, the pain would kick in like crazy. It was keeping me up at night. 800 mg of Motrin wasn't even touching the stabbing sensation in my tooth.
I woke up one day, and the entire left side of my face was swollen and tender. The tooth had abscessed. I immediately put in for sick call, and they started me on antibiotics to combat the infection and set me up with a dentist's appointment for the following week.
The jail dentist was a tiny little Asian woman. She stood maybe 5 ft tall and was very petite and unassuming. I immediately feared her. I've never been good with dentists and dental procedures, and when she informed me that my only option was to have the tooth pulled, my anxiety only grew. She took X-rays of the tooth and told me that beyond a root canal, which wasn't a possibility for me, you know, being a crook and all, if I wasn't going home relatively soon, extraction was the only viable course of action.
With great hesitation and a knot in my belly, I agreed to the procedure. It was scheduled for the next morning.
When I arrived, “Dr. Doom,” as this woman was affectionately referred to around the jail, was waiting, smiling. She donned her mask and gloves, gave me a couple of quick shots of Novocain, and began to prepare her instruments for the procedure. She wore a clear plastic shield covering her face, turned on the headlamp affixed to it, and asked me, "Ah you weh-dee? Starting to feel numb yet?"
I told her that I was, and she reached for some awful little metal instrument with which to defile my mouth. She dug into my gum with it, clamping the molar in its vise grip, and I felt a huge shock of blinding pain.
"Ah!" I shouted, my voice garbled. "Oh!! I sah-wee! You feel that?" she asked me. "I'll give you more Novocain, make you more numb now! Hold on, please!"
This woman was pure evil. I knew that somewhere deep inside of me. She was surely a sadist and had inflicted pain on me to satisfy something sick inside of herself. She injected me with four additional shots of Novocain on top of the shots she had already given me.
"That tooth in a bad way! A lot of nerve exposed!" she remarked enthusiastically. My entire head was soon without feeling, and my lips were starting to sag, completely numb. I was sure that I was drooling, and I was having trouble swallowing my own spit.
She went to work digging into my gum again. Thankfully, I didn't feel any pain this time, but the pressure was enormous. I could feel a pulling sensation all the way up into my sinus cavities. I just braced and held on, trying to get somewhere else in my mind. Somewhere happy. I was trying to dissociate. To detach. I found this to be an impossible task.
Instead, I adopted an attitude that I was deserving of this pain and discomfort for my many past transgressions, and that I surely deserved it, so I should try to enjoy it and learn to somehow honor or even try to love the experience. This, too, proved to be an impossible state for me to achieve, and I finally started just repeating to myself, over and over in my mind, "It will be over soon. It will be over soon. Just a couple more minutes and she'll have it out. Any minute now, it'll all be over."
Her face was close to mine, one of her hands in my mouth, the other braced on my shoulder. She was so damn small that she needed to lay her free forearm across my chest to give her more leverage to pull. I heard crunching sounds. She grunted a few times and seemed discouraged.
This went on for 45 minutes. "It'll all be over soon, it'll all be over soon." Yeah, right. I stopped telling myself that after the first 20 minutes or so, and now I was just despondent and upset, stuck and sweating profusely, with hot tears rolling down my face. I wanted it to end.
Dr. Doom had managed to extract part of the tooth, but the rest of it, the upper part, the part attached to the root, just didn't want to come out. So, she grabbed her drill. She decided that the best course of action was to drill the rest of the tooth into oblivion and pull it out bit by bit, piece by piece. Thankfully, this ultimately worked, and eventually she pulled back with all of her might on the last bit of molar, and it finally pulled free from my gum.
"Sah-wee!" she said. "That tooth veh-wee difficult to come out!" I muttered something unintelligible and insulting, my tongue and lips unable to form shapes to convey coherent language under the spell of the Novocain spirits. I looked down at the paper bib on my chest. It was covered in blood and small fragments of tooth and gum tissue. I wanted to puke. My face was flushed and hot, I was getting sleepy now, and I wanted to go to bed.
"Sah-wee, I can't give you anything for pain!!! You chaht says, you drug addict! Just keep taking Motrin! That should help a rittle!"
I cursed her under my breath, wiped the blood off my chin, accepted the gauze that she handed to me, and walked back toward the stairs leading back to my tier. I turned to look at her one last time, to shoot her an angry glare in hopes of somehow expressing my dark feelings toward her, and I saw her looking back at me, a giant and genuine smile on her face. She waved enthusiastically at me as I walked out the door.
When I returned to the tier, Dee took a look at me and said, "Yo, you cried, didn't you?" "Maybe I did!" I shot back, angry and disoriented by the events of the morning.
Maybe just a little. I went to lie down.
Read more from Joshua Bennett-Johnson
Joshua Bennett-Johnson, Licensed Counselor & Owner of JBJ Counseling
After working for 7 years in an amazing clinic, I launched into private practice in 2018. I love my job. I can say that without reservation. Watching people rebuild their lives is worth more than any dollar amount.
