Celeste Bull Bear- A Visit to the Dentist
The other time is I had a real bad toothache, on my left I mean on my right side and it was really swollen and they didn’t do anything about it. I went home for the weekend. I came back I was in a lot of pain. When I got back, I was telling the supervisor that my mouth was really sore and they checked it and that day they sent me to that dentist in Crowfoot School. I still remember that dentist, I could still picture him. How he looked, he was tall, he had a bald head, he had rims, round rims and he was tall, he had a white, you know, his white jacket that he wore. And there is another one in there, he was dressed like that, he was really small, kinda small and black hair. They were both white guys.
When they were checking my teeth, here I had an abscess, it was really bad. He just went ahead and pulled it out. He didn’t even freeze it, he just started pulling it out. I remember, I was just screaming, I was just crying, and I was telling him to quit because it really hurt. He just told me to shut up, and the same time he started pulling, you know really pulling. I could just feel it coming out and could just feel, hear those… I don’t know what they were. I could just hear them, when they were pulling it out, and I started screaming again. And I got his hand away from my mouth and he just hit me on my arm and told me, “you be quiet, you’re ok, there’s nothing wrong with you.” And that other guy was just standing there, watching what he was doing.
Finally, I remember that time I kind of, I don’t know… in those days I didn’t know what or how to explain it, but now it just felt like I almost blacked out because of the pain and what I heard. My mouth was just bleeding that time, and all they did was just gave me those white gauze and put them in my mouth. And I got sent back. And I was, oh, I was in pain all that week. Now, you know, I should be scared of dentists but I’m not. I’m not scared of them.
And my dentist was looking at my teeth that time, and she told me she wanted to put a partial where that was. She said, “it’s a big gap. It’s really deep and we’ll try and put those partials in here.” When I went back, she told me, “it can’t be done,” and I told her”Why?” And she said, “well something happened. I don’t know, but I don’t. Why we can’t do that, something happened. That big gap between your back teeth and your… umm it seems like you went through a trauma.” My teeth. And that’s when I shared the story with her, but she didn’t know anything about residential school, so I explained it to her. I told her what happened that’s when she told me,”you know when somebody has an abscess, you’re supposed to wait for the swelling to go down, you’re supposed to wait. And then after that they freeze it and they’ll take it out.” I think she was horrified what that dentist did. So, he really, I don’t know, he really did something to my teeth.
– Celeste Bull Bear (Bear Chief)
Notes:
Oral interview with Celeste Bull Bear (Bear Chief). Conducted, translated, and transcribed by Gwendora Bear Chief. Old Sun Community College, March 28, 2022.
