Fear

Okay, so today I am headed to the dentist. I brought my laptop along because I need to work on a 5 page essay for sociology. I'm doing so in the car. I get car sick really easily though, especially when I read, so I am being rather cautious.

I have to have a tooth removed today. Not looking foreward to that. I'm a little scared actually, since they have to give me laughing gas and I won't be in control of anything, The tooth they have to remove is actually half of a baby tooth. It just didn't want to come out of my mouth, even though the adult tooth has already grown in and pushed it to the side. Everyone thinks it sounds painful, but its just annoying mainly. It doesn't hurt unless I try to move it.

I thought about vlogging with my brothers on the car ride, but I'm not sure if they're up to it. One is asleep ( the one that is 13 years old) and one is reading a book (the 6 year old). I may do it in a few minutes though.

The thing about going to the dentist for us is that we have to drive for more than an hour to get there. Then we have to wait in the waiting room for anywhere from ten minutes to an hour. It is rather complicated.

I get to miss drama practice because of this though, so that's nice. After this, we get to go eat dinner at a Mexican restaurant with my grandparents. Not sure how well I'll be able to eat or how hungry I will be, but whatever.

Have I informed you all that we got a new car? Its a Buick Enclave, and I love it. Bucket seats in the front and middle rows, then three seat in the very back. It is quite a bit more roomy and comfortable than our Chevy HHR. The HHR was good and more fuel efficient, but it was super cramped. There is no way I could use my laptop while we were all inside.

I made a laptop case out of duct tape. I finished it yesterday. It has a main pocket for the laptop, then a pocket on the back for the charger. Then, it has a flap and a strap to hold it by. And it had two other pockets, one for pencils and on for CDs or whatever. It is water proof too. It is red and black and pink zebra striped.

I gotta get off for now. Don't want to get sick.
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So... Getting a tooth removed in a non-sugrical manner is actually really fast and easy. I laid down on the bed chair thingy that they had, then I watched a movie as they gave me laughing gas. They then did a numbing paste stuff on my gum, followed by numbing shots. They then just took the tooth out. It didn't really hurt at all, except one of the two shots, which kind of hurt a little.
Laughing gas gives you a feeling that is hard to explain. Basically, all of your limbs go kind of numb, but you can still feel and move them. Like, when your arm or leg falls asleep, but not that extreme and all over your body. It really just made me want to go to sleep.

The numbing of my gum was a little different though. It felt like my mouth became, basically, dead. I still can't feel really anything with it. And it has gotten in the way of my speech a little bit, but nothing major.

I really don't think it was as big of a thing as I presumed it would be. It was nothing to be afraid of, but when I first went back into the room I was scared senseless. Just goes to show you that fear is a temporary and shallow thing. And many times what we fear is really not that scary once we get up close.

I've been scared of many things throughout my life. When I was little, I was scared of the Operation game, the game where you do this fake surgery and if you mess up it makes a loud beeping noise. I was scared to death, to the point that I would see the box or hear a similar noise and my heart would start racing. The fear became almost crippling, since I couldn't even go down the board game aisle at walmart without looking at the floor the whole time. I slowly tried to convince myself and others that it would be fine to be around it. I just couldn't bring myself to play it or watch someone play it, or ever watch one of the commercials for the game. About a year and a half ago, I had convinced myself that the only way to get over the fear was by exposure, so after school one day I went and watched while one of my friends was playing the game. It kind of cured me, or at least gave me an extreme tolerance for it.

Nowadays, my only real fear is death and the things associated with it. Everything else I can get over pretty quickly, or at least talk myself out of being afraid of. I think the main thing is working to get past your fear and not letting it control your life. Oh, and I'm slightly afraid of heights and getting lost, but I get over that rather quickly.

Man, my mouth is still really numb. I hope this doesn't prevent me from eating Mexican food, because I'm really hungry.

My mouth is kind of bleeding a tiny bit. Its not as bad as it was. My dad told me earlier not to swallow the blood because it would make me sick to my stomach. But I really don't understand why or how that would happen. Sounds like a question for the Scishow (a show on science that one of the vlogbrothers does).

Love,
Elizabeth W.