This is Part 5 of the series to serialize my book The Money Mentor: A Tale of Finding Financial Freedom. Click here to start reading from Part 1. Every other week will have another segment of the story of how a 23-year-old dancer struggles with and ultimately overcomes the burdens of her crushing financial debt. Look for posts on a variety of topics in the intervening weeks.

After studying the X rays on the light box on his wall, Dr. Testa told me the bad news about the gold inlay and the necessity of one more visit to his office. “And I also think that you should have your wisdom teeth out. You’re not using them, and they can cause you trouble in the future. It’s best to extract them when you’re young and healthy.”

I thought of the pain and the discomfort that would follow, living on soup and baby food for a week, and it just seemed like my miseries were multiplying much too fast. Anyway, who had asked him about my wisdom teeth? But the fear of future pain vanished when Dr. Testa began squirting a little liquid out of the long needle of the hypodermic that he intended to inject near the hinge in my jaw. I’ve always been afraid of needles, I don’t know why, and I even look away if a doctor has to draw blood for a test. I wanted to jump out of the chair and run, but I had a picture in my head of Dr. Testa pouncing quick as a cat to make sure I stayed put. His first few tries with the needle must have missed the right spot because he keep thrusting like a fencer until I was ready to beg him to stop.

“Open wide,” he said, and I complied.

Now he began his monologue. My childhood dentist, the one that my mom and dad used, had always liked to talk about politics. It didn’t matter what party you belonged to, whether you were a child or an adult, a man or a woman; as soon as you couldn’t reply, you got to hear his opinions from beginning to end. Dr. Testa seemed to be that way, only worse, because he was talking about me.

If you don’t want to wait two weeks for the next post in this series, you can purchase The Money Mentor on Amazon.