Visiting the dentist.....auf Deutsch

Wow...I can't believe I haven't posted in nearly a month. I apologize for my laziness, I've just been too busy traveling Europe, writing my thesis, and wasting time online (but not writing my blog). I started several posts last weekend but I never got around to finishing them....I promise to amend soon. Today my post will focus on my visit to the dentist.

In an effort to experience as much 'real' German life as possible, I visited the dentist back in March. To find a dentist in Marburg, I simply googled (in English) for dentist in Marburg and ended up on the English website of a dentist located in Marbrug (how convenient). The Dentist had an American wife and spoke perfect English (even with an American accent!) thus I was saved from learning German tooth vocabulary for a while. However, during my last visit (mostly a check-up) the dentist stated that I needed to repair a filling and I could not wait until I returned to US (and had dental insurance again) since the damaged portion of the tooth was dangerously close to a nerve (that is really really bad). Since I don't have dental insurance through the Fulbright, I have to pay for all teeth repairs myself. After spending the last two months saving money to pay for the needed repairs, I finally made another appointment with the dentist for today.

Last time I visited the dentist, the dentist tried to speak to me in German, then realized that I wasn't following, so he switched to English and I understood everything that he said. I felt like I was cheating my travel experience since I was able to converse in my native tongue but I felt that speaking English was an acceptable compromise considering that I was already pretty nervous about visiting the dentist.

In an earlier blog post, I mentioned that I felt that my German comprehension had increased dramatically in the last month. On May 5th, I conversed with my lab mates almost entirely in German. On May 6th, I left for 7 days in Great Britain. On May 12th, I returned to Germany and realized that I no longer understood anything that my lab mates said! Oh second languages...how quickly you disapear when not used......
In addition, my appointment was for 8am in the Southern quarter of the city, which meant that I had to catch a bus that left at 7:15am in order to arrive on time. I woke up at 6:30am, much much earlier than my normal wake up time. Since I woke up so early, I didn't have time to grab a coffee before catching the bus (I like to say, Ich kann kein Deutsch verstehen weil ich keinen Kaffee trinken habe).

I arrived at the dentist's office very tired and completely incoherent. But this was no problem because my dentist could speak English, which I thankfully can understand even when tired. The staff however speaks only German so I first had to navigate through the complexities of German dental bearocracy (note to others, take your passport with you, Germans aren't happy to accept Student IDs, even when issued from Germany!). Thankfully, the staff was very understanding and made every effort to communicate with pictures and hand gestures. I tired my best to communicate but I could not make a sentence more complicated than 'Es schmerzt' and point to the tooth that needed repairs. The funny thing is that my teeth didn't hurt at all, it was the only thing I could think of to describe my situation. I tried my best to reciprocate on the language front by reading a German children's book on visiting the dentist. Despite my best efforts, I still could not comprehend more than a few words spoken by the people around me.

Eventually I was taken back to visit the dentist, expecting to communicate in American dental lingo. This time, however, the English speaking dentist was unavailable so I ended up with the German brother of the dentist, which meant that all conversations took place in German! We chatted (mostly smiling and nodding on my part) and then the dentist took a look at my teeth. I could tell from his expression that he was not happy. He said something about a filling and mentioned that he would repair it. Then he brought in a peice of paper for me to sign. The paper was entirely in German with numbers and a bill. Not a big deal since I had seen a pre-pay bill before. I sign the paper and pass it back to the dentist. However, just as he pulls the paper away, I noticed that there is a '3' next to the German word for dental fillings. I think...'maybe that's just the line number for the bill (after anaethesia and cleaning). The dentist comes at me with a silver needle (frightening even when you understand what's being spoken) and proceeds to jab me not once, but twice for 20 seconds per jab. He then tilts my chair up and says, something like wait 5 minutes. I wait...falling asleep in my chair and shaking awake when I hear the door open. The dentist flips my chair back so all the blood rushed to my head. Then he pulls out the dreaded drill. The pain killer had kicked in at this point so I didn't feel much. I did notice, however, that the drill seemed to move from tooth to tooth. I kept thinking that my unfeeling nerves were playing tricks on me. However, after drilling for 20 minutes (no joke, I timed it), the dentist pulls out a mirror and has me look at my mouth. My eyes widen when I realize that the dentist had drilled holes in 3 teeth! The dentist then proceeds to look at another tooth and says...blah blah blah zwischen blah blah. I think zwischen= between. Apparently the dentist was trying to tell me that I had a cavity in between two teeth so he asked if he could drill in yet another tooth! That means that I now had four teeth with holes! The dentist (and me!) had not anticipated that the appointment would last as long as it did, so he kept having to leave to visit other patients and then return. While he was gone, I was left to ponder my poor dental hygeine and the weirdly shaped teeth in my mouth. Finally, nearly two hours after I arrived, the dentist finished.

I wandered into the hallway, a little woozy from the early morning, the blood rush to my head, and the copius amounts of local anaethesia. We try to navigate the bill process, only to discover that the dentist did not accept EC cards. As stated earlier, I did not have dental insurance which meant that I had pay for everything in cash. I ran to the ATM, then rushed back to the dental office to pay the bill. The total bill for 4 fillings, local anaethesia, and 2 hours of the dentist's time came to a little more than 300 Euros, which comes out to 75 Euros per filling. That's actually about what I would pay for a filling in US, after insurance picked up their part.

The experience was a bit terrifying, but the dentist did an amazing job with my fillings (I can barely tell where the tooth ends and filling begins) and tried really hard to keep me comfortable, even dabbing my chin when anaethesia caused drooling. I was told my a German friend that dental care in Germany is rumoured to be quite awesome. I can say that my experience provides support for this rumour, even when I couldn't understand that anything the dentist said.

Check another cultural medical experience off the list...lets hope that I don't have to check out the German hospital system.....