Chapter 1: What dental disaster story is shared in this episode?
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Rogers. Hi. This is the worst episode that we've ever recorded for me. In your opinion. For me.
We finally found the thing that I was very squeamish about. Yeah. Shockingly so. My knees were quaking. A lot of people, I think, have mouth fear. Yes. This is dental disasters. And most of my nightmares I've had, I got to hear people have lived. Yeah. This is rough. But they're great. Don't listen. No, listen. Do not listen to this. If you're a tough guy like Monica, then you can listen.
Chapter 2: What personal fears about dental procedures are discussed?
You were warned. Please enjoy Dental Disasters. All times come and go. Hi, is this Christy? Where are you? I know I didn't give you much to go off of. You do have a beautiful baby picture behind you. It's actually a blanket, but it is my daughter's photo. But I'm in Redding, California. And how's the dental work up there in Redding? Do you have a lot of good options for dental work?
What's funny is I worked in dentistry for eight years. So I do keep a good eye out for a good dentist. I did find one. Okay. So walk us through your disaster. Now I'm wondering if you witnessed one. I didn't even consider that. Same. This is one of those like police ones where we don't know what angle we're going to get. What side of the equation? Sadly, it's me. So it was February of 2022.
We actually had just moved to Redding about six months prior to that. My brother lives here. My mom ended up moving out here and so did my in-laws. But at the time, it was just my brother's family and we were new to Redding. My dad was in town visiting because February is a very big month in our family for birthdays.
So this one happened to be my niece, which is about the third one down the line in February. And my daughter's birthday, who's now nine, but was turning six, is two days after my niece on Sunday, which is important to the story.
Chapter 3: How did the family birthday party lead to a dental emergency?
We are going over. We're all doing a big old family birthday party at my brother's house. We walk in and my brother has three older kids. He's got three boys who at the time were 17, 15 and 13. Dangerous. There's a lot of boys. There's fire, there's blood. Today was virtual reality goggles that they had just bought. And so they're all trying it out. They had a few friends over as well.
And they're having a ball. When we arrive, they're showing my dad. He's got the goggles on and they're showing him how to do all the things. And they're doing something where he's like flying like Superman over New York City. Can I interrupt you for one second? Because our friend Eric just introduced us to this.
He had read recently that one of the parts of your brain that atrophies the most as you get older is your ability to maintain your balance while your eyes are closed. So he's been making all of us. And if you're older, try this. You stand on one leg with your eyes closed. If you get to 30 seconds, that's a huge win if you're older. Does that play a role in this story? Not for my dad, no.
Oh, okay. Sorry. What a waste of time detour. Well, it was a good teaching moment. It's a good tip, though. Yeah. So my dad's had enough because they had him try something. He's deathly afraid of heights, and it was way too real for him. And so he's like, I can't do this anymore, guys. Hands the goggles over to my husband, who is back at being like a 12 or 13-year-old with these goggles on.
My nephews are like, you need to try this plank game. You go up 40 stories in this building, and then you got to walk out on a plank and then just jump up. Oh, no. That sounds horrible. So he tries it and he was like, oh my God, that feels so real. He's like, babe, you're not afraid of heights. You've got to try this. I see my three nephews looking at me and smirking.
And I was like, well, I'm not going to be outdone by the boys. I did go skydiving for my 25th birthday. So I was like, I'm not going to be played up here. I was like, yes, let's do it. So put on the goggles. My 15 year old nephew sets me up. He's like, stand right here, which is literally right in front of the couch. The TV at the entertainment center is about maybe six feet in front of me.
Put on the goggles and immediately you're in this elevator. It shoots you up 40 stories and then the elevator opens and there's no more building.
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Chapter 4: What went wrong during the virtual reality experience?
It's just like this plank. It's 40 stories up in New York City, skyscraper. So you can hear like all the cabs honking and city noise and all this stuff. It's really strange. You almost feel like you can even feel like wind blowing. Yeah, your brain's filling in everything. I immediately start to feel anxious. And then I start talking myself down where I'm like, I'm in my brother's living room.
You're standing on a rug. Just walk. Of course, I hear family in the background going, come on, walk. And at this point, it's my entire family that's there. There's a good 10 people watching me do this. I start walking down to the plank. I get to the end of the plank and I asked my nephew, I was like, so now what? He's like, jump. And there's buildings like in front of you.
So I said, jump to the next building. He's like, no, just jump. I'm like, I'm not jumping to anything. Yeah, like what's the point? I'm like such an adult about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of just hopping off the end of the plank, I decide I'm all in. I'm going to do a big old leap off this plank.
I jump as high as I think I can to jump off this plank, not realizing that instead of jumping up, I've jumped out. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that being tricky. So I jump forward and all goes dark for 30 seconds. The next thing I know is that my mouth is open. It's like on the edge of the entertainment table thing. You landed mouth first on the entertainment center. I feel a tooth on my tongue.
This is a rough prompt. I don't know why we did this. There's pictures that you can see. Can't wait and I'm terrified. My brain takes a second. I just stand, it is dead silent. I can feel blood in my mouth. I cover my mouth and I walk straight to the bathroom. I close the door to assess the situation. I open my mouth and one of my teeth is basically touching my tongue.
It's still, all my teeth are still connected to my gums. Okay. From what I can see, it looks like my forefront teeth are like kind of just bent down. Okay. This is 50% of the nightmares I've had in my life. Because I think because I had so much orthodontia, it's my teeth are fucking pushed back in my mouth. I'm like, oh, no.
The people watching are just seeing a human stand and then jump into a table. Dive teeth first into it. Yeah, yeah. Yes. My very first thought was I cannot miss my six-year-old's birthday party on Sunday. I'm hosting a birthday party on Sunday, two days from now. Second thought is I guess I'm getting implants, but what does that look like this weekend?
Like my mind just started going through like the different steps of the dentistry. So I walk out of the bathroom, still cupping my mouth so I don't freak out my daughter and my niece and probably the adults as well. And so I just sit down. Everybody's kind of circled around me. My husband comes up. My sister-in-law's on the phone with urgent care to see if we should go to an urgent care or an ER.
They tell her, send her to an ER. We take off. I haven't said a word. I'm not crying. I'm not in any pain, which is, in my opinion, very bizarre, but it must be the shock. We get over to the ER. I can't.
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Chapter 5: What immediate actions were taken after the dental injury?
Where are you at, Amanda? I'm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A great place. Wholesome place. Salt to earth place. Been here all my life. Oh, lovely. Not to insult you, but that's not been terribly long. That's fair. Well, I'm 32. You are? You look like a baby. Yeah, that's a compliment. I wish I could live long enough to have a follow-up when you're 80.
Because I bet when you're 80, you're going to look about 45. Maybe you will. But when she's 80, Monty, I would be 102. Yeah. Okay. All right. We'll schedule it. Put her on the cal. Looking forward to it. Okay, Amanda, you have a dental disaster story. I do. Yeah. So this story takes place in 2019. I was 25 at the time. So imagine this face, but a little younger.
I was working spring weekends at a summer camp in Pennsylvania, big lake, canoeing, archery. But one of the activities that we ran during that time was the zip line. And that's where this story takes place. Oh, no. A lot of great stories start with the zip line. Oh my God. So when you run the zip line, there are three jobs that staff have to do.
My friend Andy's job was to belay the kids up a tree so that they could go down the zip line. My friend Carla's job was to be at the top of the tree and send the kids down the zip line. And then my job was to catch the kids after they fly on the zip line and get them back on the ground. So I was on the ground.
I also was responsible for running the pulley and rope that took the kid down the zip line back to the beginning of the zip line. So that particular day, Zipline was running business as usual for a while. But then Carla, who again was at the top of the tree, she lost her grip on the pulley in between kids and she sent the equipment down with nobody attached.
So this happens sometimes and it's not really a big deal when it does, but it is a pain in the butt for staff because when a kid goes down the Zipline, Kind of like you were talking about physics and their weight will take them back to a point in the zip line where I can reach them from the ground and unclip them.
With no kit attached, the pulley and rope would get stuck at a point in the zip line that's just too high to reach from the ground. Right, right. So usually when that happens, you would have to get a big stick to get the pulley back to where you could reach it.
And ultimately, some kids would miss out on zip lining because of the time that it would take to get that equipment back to the beginning of the line. So there is a workaround to that issue, and it's to jump and catch the pulley at the sweet spot where you can reach it from the ground. So the pulley is zooming down the zip line. My friend Carly yells at me, hey, grab it.
So without thinking, I ran and I jumped. And when I did, I tripped in my boots and I fell forward. It happened so fast that I wasn't able to catch myself properly. And I landed face first and my upper lip took the brunt of the fall. And I remember hearing a crunching noise. Oh, can you tell me what the surface you were on was? Just like kind of dirt earth? It was rocks. Oh, my God.
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Chapter 6: What challenges did the guest face at the emergency room?
And so I would be tempted to hide my crying. I probably wouldn't allow myself to cry. But what was your reaction? Were you screaming and crying or were you acting like nothing happened? I very clearly remember being asked while I was still on the ground, are you OK? And I had to think about it for a second and ultimately went, no. Oh, good. I'm glad you said no. You weren't.
So the camp is in a pretty rural area. The closest hospital was able to give me some pain meds and a tetanus shot, which I remember being very impressed by the fact that I did not feel the tetanus shot at all because of the pain meds. And then they decided to send me in an ambulance to a more well-equipped hospital in Pittsburgh.
Wasn't enough of an emergency to have the lights on, but I do now get to say that I've ridden an ambulance. So that's kind of cool. At the new hospital, they told me that I had managed to break the bone above my top front teeth. So somehow I didn't break my nose. Your maxilla? Yeah, exactly. Oh, it's this here? Yeah, right here. Oh, ow. Yeah. So somehow didn't lose any teeth when I fell.
The picture that I sent you guys is a picture of the x-ray. Oh, the x-ray. Let me see. Okay. Let me check this out. So they fixed me up with some ugly yellow temporary braces that I had to wear for the whole summer to fix the broken bone. The original intention was that I was going to work that summer at that camp, but I ended up not being able to because it was just a little too broken.
I eventually had to get root canals on my two front teeth. Oh no. I couldn't eat anything with the front of my mouth. So things like mozzarella sticks and sandwiches I ate with a fork the whole summer. Oh, my God. Cut them up real tiny. All I wanted was a taco the whole summer. Yeah. Yeah. So you can have something you really want. Are you still afraid to eat corn on the cob? Actually, no.
I have told dentists after the accident, I said, hey, little sensitive in the front. And they were like, but you got root canals. It shouldn't be sensitive in the front. I was like, emotionally sensitive. Yeah, spiritually and emotionally. What could they do for that broken bone? You can't put a cast on your maxilla. You just got to kind of strap those teeth together and make them do the work.
Right. I was a first year teacher at the time, so I had to take a whole week off of work. Super embarrassing coming back with those big, ugly bracelets. But I did and went through the rest of May and June. Amanda, you would get a good boy award if you were around more because you're a teacher and a camp counselor and you had yellow braces. This is a lot of good boy stuff.
You'll get the Jimmy Kimmel best boy. Yeah, best boy. That's what I mean to say. Thank you. Also, since I was working when I got hurt, I didn't have to pay a penny for any of my medical costs. Oh, that's great. That was probably a pricey ambulance ride. And all these root canals.
The one last thing that I wanted to mention specifically to you, Monica, is the hospital that I went to is actually the hospital that the show The Pit is based off of. Oh, my God. Really? Yeah. So every time I watch the show, I think about the time that I broke my face and how I could totally be on the show. Oh, they should write you in season three. Was your doctor a stone cold fox? I wish.
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Chapter 7: What was the outcome of the dental treatment after the accident?
Least shocking story you could hear to come out of London. Okay, so you have a dental disaster story. This happened last year. So actually, I just recently had the memories of some pictures that I'd sent and some texts that had popped up a year ago. But I think I'm very confident in saying this, but I have a big fear of the dentist. Severe dental anxiety.
My hands are like a bit sweaty right now thinking about, oh my God, I have to think about being at the dentist. From when I was a kid, I feel like I was kind of gaslit into thinking that my mouth was frozen. It was not during a tooth extraction. So since then, I'm like, I don't trust you. I'm going to go for cleaning. And that is it. Fortunately, I do have a new dentist in London.
So things have been going pretty good with them. I go to the office. They have TVs on the ceiling. So I can watch like a nature documentary. I've watched a Taylor Swift documentary. And what about getting the gas? A lot of places will give you the gas just for a cleaning job. Oh yeah, we get the gas. Okay, great. Yeah, if you have a lot of anxiety about the dentist.
That is definitely part of the story is the gas for an appointment. So I put my AirPods in, I have noise canceling on. I'm basically like, I'm going to lay here, wish for this to be over. And you just push me a little bit when I'm done. You're going to disassociate. You're like, I'm going to go to another place. I'm not here. So my dentist does offer laughing gas.
So if anyone has not had laughing gas, it basically is like a mass thing that goes over your nose. It kind of is uncomfortable. You're breathing in a continuous mix of laughing gas and oxygen for most of your appointment. And I get it for a cleaning because I also hate cleanings. I want to feel like I just drank a bottle of wine or I smoked a joint. You kind of like melt into the chair.
It's lovely. Why aren't we allowed to just like have that? Oh, I used to do it recreationally. Really? Yeah, you could go to this after hours bar in Detroit and they had laughing gas balloons. This appointment that I was talking about last year was not a cleaning though. It was actually an appointment to get a crown.
So I was eating one of those hard suckers that have the gum in the middle and I cracked my tooth. Right when it happened, I was like, I don't actually care about the tooth. I care about the dentist visits that are going to happen because of this stupid sucker. the appointment for the crown is a three-hour appointment. So a lot of dentists' offices will have two appointments.
The first appointment, they kind of like shave your tooth down, they measure the crown, then you go on your way, and then you come back and get the crown fitted. My dentist, we're doing it all at once. We're going to shave your tooth down, measure it, basically 3D print it while you're in the office. That's probably not the technical term, but that is how it was kind of described to me.
So I knew that I was going into three-hour appointments. I'm Okay. AirPods charged. Wake up. I have my kind of work from home breakfast, which is ramen noodles, like three cups of coffee, very healthy breakfast. Start my day. Empty carbs and three cups of coffee. Yes. Perfect. I'm like 2000 milligrams. So yeah.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can be learned from these dental disaster stories?
It is flying out of the sides of my mouth. I'm laying down. It's in my ears. It's in my hair. It's down my back. Noodles and coffee. Oh, no.
yes visible noodles why aren't they getting you up so they're trying to tell me up and it's one of those chairs that they're like it's never as fast as you want it to be they're taking things out of my mouth and they're like did you know you were gonna pass out did you eat today and i'm like i clearly ate today it is all over you i can see a noodle on your shoulder over there
You know, those suction tools at the dentist that suck up like blood and spit. They are actually not made for noodles. No, it's not going to work. You're going to clog that in a second. So I clogged it in a second, exactly as predicted. And I didn't just clog it for my treatment room, but the machine clogged for the whole office. Yeah, it's got a central vacuum attached to it.
So the reason I know it clogged for the whole office is because what I did not mention is my dentist office is open concept. Oh no. Wait, first of all, no. You walk in, there's a reception desk, and then imagine like a central island, almost like a room divider, but with separate alcoves coming off of that divider. No doors. It's fully open. Why? That's a bad idea.
So if like a kid is crying, someone's screaming, you hear it. If someone is throwing up. No wonder you have anxiety there. It's like getting dental surgery in the middle of the mall. Yes. Everyone is immediately like their suction has stopped. What is going on? They're smelling puke. I'm still covered in the puke.
So that machine is like getting dealt with while my dentist is talking to me about it. no, you're not supposed to eat before laughing gas. But because I had forgot to mention that I wanted it, they did not call me the day before to say, don't eat. Comedy of errors. I get up, like you're kind of stumbling after laughing gas.
I have to do a mini walk of shame to the bathroom past all these open rooms. Go in the bathroom. I have my shirt off. I wore a white t-shirt that day, which is so lovely. Washing it in the sink. I'm like washing my noodle hair in the sink, which is literally the same texture as the ramen noodles that I'm trying to wash out. Oh my God. Ringlets and ringlets.
I am furiously texting my fiance being like, you need to bring me a t-shirt. I cannot sit in this, but I'm just being like, I just have to rinse off, go out there, get my shit and go home. So I go out there and my dentist reminds me that you can't leave because we have to finish your crown appointment. The crown has started curing. It's not like a go home and come back later.
It's sit for an hour and a half rest of your appointment. No. Well, he had a lot of stick-to-it-ness. Send me home with the crown and I'll figure out how to do it myself. Please, I'm begging you. I have to get out of here. And they're probably now nervous to give you the gas again. I rejected the gas.
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