You're Biting My Fingers

By Y R U Laffing

With the knowledge of 'human nature' taught to him by his most interesting patients YRU Laffing wrote his humorous book, 'You're Biting My Fingers', while keeping in mind the slogan, 'many a true word is spoken in jest'. It takes the reader through amusing unusual instances in the dental chair and refers to how the majority of patients willingly talk to his assistant and him about their problems completely unrelated to dentistry. In the words of the author--" Sigmund Freud-- eat your heart out!"
The author makes mention of famous people in history who happened to be dentists. Among them was Paul Revere, the American patriot. Who hasn't heard of the gunfighter Doc Holliday, famous for his part in the gunfight at OK Corral, who walked the streets of Tombstone with his Colt 45 still smoking in between working on the mouths' of patients. Horace Wells, the Hartford dentist regarded as the father of general anaesthetics, when he found a use for laughing gas at a circus of all places, and many more...
Having been in dental practice for over 40years now, the author has come to the conclusion: There is a lot more to dentistry than just 'drilling and filling'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Y R U Laffing
• Release date: Feb 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311625342

Y R U Laffing

Born on 14th June 1945, in Johannesburg, South Africa, I came screaming into a world of great promise. I was the third male in a blissful upper middle-class family of five kids, my younger twin sisters completing the pentagon. I wasn't particularly crazy about school as I mostly liked to do my own thing that relied on a capacious imagination that took me to out of the way far-flung exciting places. University was an improvement I must admit, where I obtained my dental degree at the University of The Witwatersrand. A year long sojourn in London followed where the continuous rain forced me to return home for fear of developing 'water on the brain'. My father ran a very successful service station in the heart of the township of Soweto[it had the largest petrol sales on the African continent, mainly due to his manipulation of petrol coupons that were introduced to carry out petrol rationing during WWII] which allowed us to live in the exclusive suburb of Lower Houghton. Dad was unfortunately later ignominiously removed from his place of work when the colour of his skin finally got the better of him as Soweto was declared a non-white area. As a kid I experienced first hand the Soweto riots and the worst of the violence in the country during Nelson Mandela's incarceration on Robben Island where this great man had the most breath-taking Five Star view of Table Mountain, but alas only one star for accommodation. I based my first novel 'The Ancestor's Assassin', on these incredible events. While in practice in Johannesburg for 44 years hard labour without the chance of parole, I had the good fortune in the early 80's to work on the teeth of Israeli aeronautical scientists sent clandestinely to work on the manufacture of South Africa's military hardware. They informed me about their experiences during the Lebanon campaign and together with exhaustive research on my part into the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982[ Operation--Peace for Galilee], The Lavi fighterbomber's construction with U.S. Congressional funding and the workings of MOSSAD and the PLO, I wrote my second novel entitled 'The Lavi Connection'. My present novel, 'You're Biting My Fingers' is a humorous anthology of my years in dentistry.I have been happily married to my one and only wife, Joyce, for 40years now. We have two extraordinary kids in Romy a practising psychologist(40yrs-old), and Ryan an accountant specialising in tax(37yrs-old). Romy and husband Michael have given us 3 glorious grand-kids in Daniel(10 years-old), Amy(7 years-old) and last but not least, the 'holy terror' named Adam(4 years-old). They live in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and the highlight of our lives is our annual stay with them. I have been retired from dentistry for a year now without the slightest hint of boredom. My continual love for writing keeps me going with the same amount of enthusiasm I had as a youngster. it is my greatest wish to get all three books made into movies.

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You're Biting My Fingers

By Y.R.U. Laffing

Copyright 2015 Y.R.U. Laffing

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Table of Contents

Preface

Prologue

Chapter 1- When you begin the beguin

Chapter 2- The young ones

Chapter 3- Happy days are here again

Chapter 4- Love, you funny thing

Chapter 5- Ebony & Ivory

Chapter 6- There's no business, like show business

Chapter 7- I can't give you anything but love, baby

Chapter 8- Killing me softly

Chapter 9- My eyes are dim, I cannot see

Chapter 10- Unforgettable, that's what you are

Chapter 11- The moment he walked in the joint

Chapter 12- Tradition

Chapter 13- Sleepy time gal

Chapter 14- Lonely is the name that I answer to

Chapter 15- Food, glorious food

Chapter 16- The green, green grass of home

Chapter 17- Regrets, I've had a few

Chapter 18- Once, on a high and windy hill

Chapter 19- Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread

Chapter 20- Smile, though your heart is aching

Chapter 21-Who's sorry now?

About the author

About this collection-story title 1

Discover other titles by YRU Laffing-Story title 2 & title 3

YOU’RE BITING MY FINGERS

PREFACE

‘You’re biting my fingers’ can best be described as a humorous chronicle of my many years as a dentist. But you should keep in mind dear reader that many a true word is spoken in jest. As you peruse, it becomes obvious that the book is about people; some likeable, some not, but not one of them dull. You may be unsure whether the incidents in the book are fact or fiction. I assure you that every chapter is about an incident that actually occurred.

My necessary and extensive research into the history of dentistry was a real eye opener. Who knew that dentistry as it progressed through the ages, would lead to such important and diverse discoveries ranging from rubber manufactured articles such as motor vehicle tyres to general anaesthetics. And don’t forget the condoms!

Included in my saga is the complicated yet fascinating working relationship between my long serving dental assistant and myself, as we get down to the root of the problem, while working on our most interesting patients. It is also a learning experience for the readers, almost all of whom, have visited someone’s dental office at some stage or other in their lives, to endure those much talked about misadventures in the dreaded long dental chair! You will learn about all those strange procedures your dentist tirelessly undertakes: Why is he placing that sheet of rubber over my mouth before a root canal? Is he trying to suffocate me? Why does that high-speed drill have to make such a horrendously nerve-wracking sound? Is he trying to scare me to death?

My overall aim is to persuade as many people as I possibly can to accept dental procedures. Not necessarily akin to a visit to Disney World you understand, but as a tolerable event. There are worse places to be in folks - take Devil’s Island. I realize that my attempts at allaying your fears may be like splitting the atom with my fingers, when taking into account that you good folk have been subjected to hours of negative indoctrination about this noble profession. Through the tool of humour however, employed throughout the book, I hope to apply the antidote to the poison that has jaundiced the views held about dentistry. Only laughter is the best medicine.

You’re biting my fingers does have its more compassionate side however, that never fails to bring out that lump at the back of one’s throat when a rather sad account unfolds about an unfortunate patient. But I believe only in happy endings. I assure you by bedtime those tears will be well and truly dried as nothing more than salty smudges on your cheeks and down either side of your nose. You may ask how is it possible to make light of a visit to the dentist?

All I can say is, once you have read ‘You’re biting my fingers’ you will be compelled to call up your dentist and say: I just called to say I love you! It may not come to you at once. For I don’t by any means expect you to jump out of your bath tub like Archimedes and go running naked down the road screaming: Eureka I have found it!! And anyhow folks, I genuinely believe that a sense of humour goes further than a stimulation of one’s diaphragm to initiate that peculiar sound called laughing. I rather see it as an expression of our defence mechanism against all odds. What makes me say that?

Let me tell you what it does to me when I watch an interview with Mr Nelson Mandela in the hot seat being questioned about his years of incarceration for his political beliefs, or Oprah Winfrey who also went through some extremely difficult times in her life, as she presents another of her incredibly successful talk shows. It shoots thrills up and down my spine like nothing else can. I really do appreciate where these two highly acclaimed individuals are coming from. Their example gives me profound hope to carry on during those bad times when nothing seems to go right. I am convinced it is mainly as a result of their sense of humour that Nelson Mandela and Oprah Winfrey were able to get through the crises in their lives and still retain the ability to smile.

I want it to go on record that there is no shame in being afraid of the unknown. For fear makes cowards of us all. So when that square rubber sheeting is placed over your mouth before a root canal, or those high pitched sounds of the high-speed drill rattles your brain, you have every right to feel anxious. But conversely, why make DENTISTRY an unknown? If you guys would only attend more regularly - no, I mean it. How many times does the lady of the house visit her hairdresser? Or go to see her beautician for that matter. Isn’t the pain as she has her legs waxed, and to a greater degree, that part of her anatomy, which has to be cleared of unsightly hair in order to wear a bikini bottom, worse than treatment at her dentist? Her dentist will disguise the pain with local anaesthetic remember. How many times in the year do you take the motorcar in for a service? How often do you make an appointment for your medical G.P. and have him tap the ribs of your chest with a continually banging finger in order to test for fluid in the chest, or put that circular freezing end of his stethoscope against your warm skin on a winter day? In my mind it’s enough to initiate a heart attack. Yet you visit your medical doctor a lot more frequently than your dental one. And you frequent the hairdresser and beautician a lot more than your dentist, while bearing expensive gifts over Christmas and Easter and probably on their birthdays too. The only things you bring to your dentist are your complaints, right? Are the lungs and heart not dependant on the health of the teeth and jaws? Did you know that an infected tooth has the potential to fatally damage your heart and your other vital organs? It is true folks, every little word of it. You could acclimatize through regular visits guys to become perfectly relaxed, and reach the stage like a number of my dedicated patients of falling asleep during treatment. They happen to be more relaxed in my dental chair than in their beds at home. My only complaint is that the loud snores blot out the music from my radio address system. Let me drive home the wisdom about the statement concerning not making dentistry an unknown entity, by telling you attentive readers about a 12 year old called Givya Tsoris. Since birth he never verbalised at all. It’s no word of a lie when I tell you that he never made a sound in all those years. Then out of the blue, on one icy cold evening during dinner as he was slurping his boiling hot soup, he suddenly cried out in pain as he held tightly onto his lower jaw: Ouch!!! That really hurts!!

His parents were understandably dumbfounded. All these years we thought you were deaf and dumb. Why didn’t you say anything before? Why did you keep us in a state of anxiety? When all along you could talk?

You know what the boy replied folks? Can you believe?

Until now, I never needed to say anything.

And so it is with dentistry. Whatever happened to ‘prevention is better than cure’? Has it disappeared with gone with the wind?

* * *

PROLOGUE

Let me begin dear reader, by introducing myself. I’m an average sort of guy and a member of the most hated profession of all time. You guessed it; I’m a dentist. Whether its ancient Egypt, or modern USA, we as a profession just can’t make your day. Why is that? No matter what we do, when things don’t turn out like we want them to, and in most cases not because of any fault of our own, you guys come down on us with an earthquake of prejudice greater than 8.9 on the Richter scale. But we carry on smiling. You know why? Not because we are the ones who have control over your mouths, and naturally your speech, and can get you to say anything once we have you in our reclining dental chair. It’s just that we’re the real nice guys of the professions. And our only desire is to please your misinformed wisdoms. We are prepared to forget those hurtful things like: ‘I’d rather have a baby than go through this doctor’. My male colleagues and I agree wholeheartedly with you lady. We would gladly rather make you a baby. It’s much more fun. Just give us the word to adjust the dental chair accordingly. Or the wise guy who threatens to take hold of my testicles with the accompanying words of: ‘Now we’re not going to hurt one another, are we doctor?’ What a terrible thing to say. That’s really putting our patience to the test, in the most-icky manner imaginable. I could retaliate by replying with a cutting comment about his exaggerated show of fear toward his dental treatment with: You won’t take the local anaesthetic numbing needle, or the nitrous oxide gas. How about a Viagra pill? It doesn’t work as a pain killer, but its effect will sure as hell give you something to hold on to when I pull your tooth!

I would never treat my patients in that fashion. I certainly had the opportunities over the years to be flippant with a number of my more difficult patients, but I just gritted my teeth and answered in a civil manner. Take that time, not so long ago, when the patient in the chair complained of the smell of burning coming from the tooth I was working on with my high-speed drill. He wasn’t all that happy with the drill’s water spray either. I could have answered in a nasty way with a remark like what would you have me do mister? Wait for the flames to appear by not having water spray and then give the tooth a blast from the fire extinguisher? You know how I answered guys? I do sympathise with you Mister Brown. But unfortunately the high-speed drill moves at over half-a-million revolutions a minute and this creates quite a bit of friction and subsequent heat. That’s why there is a water spray. But some patients find it not a 100% effective. See? Isn’t that a whole lot better than being sarcastic and causing stomach acids to pour out and give me heartburn?

Contrary to public misinformation, we dentists also have feelings. You don’t think so? Okay then, how do you guys account for our tears when you don’t pay us? And the tears and shrieks of pain as you and your kids bite our fingers? Our bodies, contrary to popular belief, also comprise mortal muscle and bone, guys. We definitely don’t have any metal parts in our physiques, and that includes our hearts. So don’t believe those rumours you hear about old dentists don’t die, they just rust away. And don’t believe a word about those bloodthirsty stories either. I haven’t had a drink with Count Dracula for at least a month now. And don’t believe those rumours about a dentist being the inventor of the electric chair. What a shocking thing to say! So do yourselves a favour guys, sit back and relax, as the true compassionate story about dentistry unfolds before your eyes.

Now we all can’t be as good as Doctor Sammy Smile, our patients’ idea of the perfect dentist, who glibly maintains that he never, ever, puts a tooth wrong. For no matter how we try not to, we are only human, and eventually we must hurt a couple of patients along the way. The only way to prevent this is to find a dentist who works on corpses only. And I definitely am not in that category. My patients are very much alive, often, too much so.

Before I go on to recount my experiences with those most fascinating of human beings, namely my patients, I would first like to mention, how a few individuals who just happened to be dentists, were fated to change the face of dentistry as so often happens, due to pure chance.

It was in those early years at the start of the 19th Century when the most colourful characters made their dramatic appearances. Who can forget that dentist from the Wild West, of Gunfight at OK Corral fame? I’m talking about Doc Holliday who accompanied Wyatt Earp to take on the bad guys. Compromised by the debilitating effects of tuberculosis, this gritty son of Georgia would have to pour a bottle of crudely distilled whiskey down screaming throats before ripping his patient’s, or should I say victim’s teeth from their sockets. Not that Doc Holliday was ever sober himself. Most historians authoritatively declare that Doc Holliday would only pour a third of the bottle of booze down the patient’s throat. Two thirds he would keep for himself. This crude form of anaesthesia would soon be a thing of the past however.

It all began in the United States in the mid 1800’s. A rather shy fellow by the name of Horace Wells, who happened to be a dentist residing in Hartford, Connecticut, sat in his ringside seat beneath the big top. A performance by two clowns riveted his attention; there they were, the bigger painted character in baggy pants, whacking away with a patella hammer at the kneecap of his partner who happened to be a diminutive dwarf with thick red painted lips and bulbous red nose, and can you believe it when I say that the little fellow was - loving every minute of it. Only Horace in the entire audience noticed that the little comical character took continuous inhalations from a gas tank while being beaten. Only Horace bothered to find out that the gas was called nitrous oxide, better known today as' laughing gas' or by its other name— 'happy gas'.

A bright light bulb appeared above Horace’s head. The gas, he concluded, had properties that dulled pain; and he was right. How effective would this gas be while extracting and drilling teeth, his creative mind began to ponder? After many months of frustrating man-hours, he eventually managed to organise a demonstration as to the effectiveness of laughing gas by recreating the performance of those two loveable circus clowns. He was convinced Barnum & Bailey and the Ringling Brothers would make him famous. And he was not wrong, although things never panned out the way he intended.

The auditorium was packed. Only this time the young excited children and their joyous parents were replaced by the greatest medical minds of that time. It was quiet too, no brass bands at this matinee performance. Not only were there interested academics from the United States present, but equally as well known individuals as far a-field as England and the far corners of Europe in attendance. Their names had appeared in all the famous medical journals. It was a Who’s Who of those dedicated followers of The Hippocratic-Oath.

Horace displayed a certain amount of trepidation - who wouldn’t? He called for a volunteer from the audience. A large strapping individual weighing in the region of over 300 pounds laboriously made his way to the stage and lowered his more than adequate bulk onto the single chair strategically positioned thereon for all to see clearly. The quiet was reported to be deafening as Horace placed the gas mask on the willing volunteer and the rickety chair creaked dangerously. He opened the gas cylinder and timed the effusion to correspond with the duration the circus clown had inhaled. Then having folded up one pants leg to expose a rounded and heavily insulated kneecap, Horace took his best swing with a patella hammer in both hands. It could be equated with Babe Ruth the baseball legend performing one of his home run hitting-swings for the New York Yankees. The audience responded in alarm at the sound of hammer making contact with knee. Horace showed his confident smile from ear to ear. This was a big mistake however, for the volunteer responded by planting his oversized fist in Horace’s solar plexus once he had recovered from the excruciating pain in his swollen knee.

The laughter from the audience and the cries of humbug! accompanied Horace out of the auditorium. A short time later, unable to live with his shame, he committed suicide. Dentists have maintained this record of jumping off buildings or drilling their jugulars to bleed to death ever since. They have a permanent place in the Guinness Book of Records for doing so. It was years later, when it was determined that laughing gas’ effectiveness was only directly related to body mass, that nitrous oxide took its place as the precursor to general anaesthetics (ie; an individual weighing-in at 300 lbs requires three times the amount of laughing gas than an individual weighing-in at a mere 100 lbs). Tragically, this consideration had never entered Horace’s mind, as he administered the grossly insufficient amount of gas to his portly patient. Nevertheless, a dentist was recognized as the father of modern anaesthesia. What better way to get this underestimated profession off the ground once and for all?

Could this following account of a remarkable discovery in dental history, be the answer to the profession’s determined attempt at no longer being regarded as a calling recognised only for its ‘drilling and filling’? It all began once upon a time in 1952 when a Swedish professor specialising in research relating to microcirculation in bone tissue, discovered the principles of osseointegration, which gave rise to the concept of dental implants. Professor, Per-Ingvar Branemark and his team in Gothenburg, Sweden, were investigating as to how blood flow affects bone healing with the aid of bone anchored optical devices enclosed in protective titanium casings that were fastened into the lower limbs of a rabbit. They observed first-hand how the bone healing was progressing, although they couldn’t help expressing anger and frustration when their attempts failed to remove the encrusted bone from the titanium, once the research project had ended. This unexpected observation astonished the researcher to such an extent, that he spent the rest of his life in perfecting the technique of having the interface of human bone tissue adhere to titanium oxide of the dental implant in an inseparable bond. In 1965 Professor Per-Ingvar Branemark placed his first implants in the jaws of patient Gosta Larsson of Gothenburg. When the patient passed away in 2006, over 40 years later, he had had his implants still in place and fully functional. The second recipient, Sven Johansson received his implants in 1967 and after 45 years this achievement makes him part of living dental history. However, Professor Branemark’s countless attempts over the next twenty years to have his work recognised by the medical fraternity, was met with abject failure. It was only when an article published in Reader's Digest describing the phenomenon of dental implants reached the ordinary man in the street, that this miraculous discovery finally achieved its deserved place in medical accomplishments. Now, at long last, the Swedish people can sleep easy. The guilt they carried until 1965, where the ever-present memory of their Viking ancestor invaders’ knocking out the teeth of their hapless victims is a thing of the past. In this day and age, all they have to do is recall their Swedish Professor’s discovery of restoring those missing teeth