me and my trips to the dentist!

I want to write about two different dentist trips that I had. One takes place about a few weeks ago and the other took place this morning.

A trip to the dentist has never been my favourite activity. Perhaps it would be safe to say that i am dentist phobic. When the kids were small it was actually Bob who booked the dentist appointments.. if he left it to me they would never happen.

So how did i end up going to the dentist? It started out by having something stuck in my tooth and i kept poking and poking til i managed to actually loosen some tartar and the jaggedness began to drive me crazy so i decided that a cleaning was in order. I went to Dr. Carolina, a dentist in Coxen Hole. She is a wonderful lady and made me feel right at home. The cleaning went well except for the fact that she found a cavity. Oh no, I wasn’t expecting that .

She booked an appointment for me and as it turned out I couldn’t go because there wasn’t any power that day. Hallelujah! Then a few days later i went to her and she told me that she couldn’t work because she had an eye infection. Double hallelujah!! About 2 weeks later I found myself sitting in her office with my nerves on edge and thinking.. oh my word..I don’t like this,I don’t like this one bit!!!!

I was able to explain to her “mi nervioso” and she laughed saying, no problema.

Now going to the dentist in Canada is nerve racking enough but going to a dentist who speaks limited English is even worse!! But we managed to do our best to communicate.

While we were waiting for the freezing from the needle to take we talked about where she went to school, where she met her husband, the ages and names of our children, where she got her haircut, how her husband wishes she had long hair (but mucho calor which means too hot). I was very much at ease until she began to drill and i felt it all!!! I said OW OW OW! She stopped and said, “mas medicina?”

Oh si, mas medicina!!! (more medicine) so I had another needle and more chatting and then she was able to drill and fill my tooth with no more problems. I admit though I was so nervous that I was actually shaking. It’s crazy.

The way it works in Honduras is you pay for each visit so Dr. Carolina handed me a piece of paper that said “300.00 Limpera’s” which is about 15.00. I said, “Oh Carolina mas Limpera’s” She said, “No no no.. mi amiga.” In other words she didn`t want me to pay much because I was her friend. I ended up paying her 25.00. That is all she would take.

Not a bad price for a filling.. it would have been about 4 times that much in Canada.

Okay fast forward to last evening. I was on the computer and my tooth began to ache like crazy. I could barely think and the pain was unbearable. I was on facebook and had marked my status as : Debi has a tooth ache.. .owww! I soon got several comments one of whom was from a dentist who has served on the island here as a missionary and he told me that there was a dentist in Roatan at the moment who was from Harvard and I should go see her since toothaches often mean a need for a root canal. Okay I want you to think of the scariest thing for you. It might be spiders, snakes, high places, tight places, surgery, sky diving, but for me it is root canals. That is like one of the most dreaded things in my mind!!

I had many other comments mostly saying go to the dentist etc. but one lady said this:

I am praying for a miracle.

I went to bed and while laying there I began to think about all the miracles He has done: He

has caused the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, and even the dead to rise so.... what is the big deal about healing a sore tooth!! I prayed asking Him to do a miracle for me.

The next morning I woke up and had no pain whatsoever!! Yippee! I almost didn't go to the dentist but Bob said this: 'Go to the dentist because once they take an xray and there isn't any problem it will confirm that it was a miracle'

So off I go.. feeling nervous. The lady who saw me was so nice. She took an xray of two teeth and there wasn't sign of a cavity, nerve damage or a need for a root canal. There wasn't anything wrong at all.

I told her about prayer and a miracle!

I want to quote my friend David, the dentist who comes here because he has said it well:

"How cool is it you needed a dentist (even though you didn't need treatment, you needed confirmation of the diagnosis) and there happened to be a highly trained one there at the same time as your need? The miracle had already occurred, even before your tooth started hurting! And if you had a raging abscess it still would have been miraculous just based on the timing. You were in what we call a win win situation regardless, you just got the "no shot option" YAY! :)"

So I am thankful for His power, I am thankful for friends who say "I am praying for a miracle", I am thankful for volunteers who come here to help out... I am just thankful!

What about you? What are you thankful for?

PS~ I am also sooo thankful that Bob has been working tirelessly (?) at the souvenir shop and they are almost ready to get the roof on. He is so committed to helping the islanders. We thought we'd be having help from a team that was coming to the island but that changed so he has been working hard with the help of a couple of island friends. Please pray for him and for help to come when it is needed.

Thanks so much for standing with us.