How about when my brother G. pushed me backwards down a slide when we lived on 15th Street... Now it was all an accident, you see. My brother would NEVER do a thing to hurt Sweet little ole, pretty little Me. So how about that? Well! That is when I "chipped" my front tooth and that was the end of Sweet little ole, pretty little Me. Geez, I was just a second grader. I had 10 more years of school pictures to get through...I don't even think I was taken to the Dentist that day. A dentist visit was reserved for true emergencies, like toothaches that made us cry ourselves to sleep.
I looked like an "Ipana" toothbrush commercial. It was a reason not to smile for the rest of my school days and it could have been an easy "fix" but I never met a dentist who figured that out until I was well out of high school. And all Dr Fix-it simply did was offer to file the chipped tooth and front teeth down a 'little'. Really? That was it! Done! All those years of being self-conscious and it could have been done sooner. I should have met Dr Fix-it first...
I went to a dentist when I was in second grade for the first time because of a toothache. He had an office just around the corner and I drew a picture for him and he hung it on his wall, I remember thinking "maybe he would not hurt me if I gave him a peace offering?" I was wrong! He pulled my tooth and it was a permanent tooth, the first of many I would lose over time. You see, it was $10 to pull and $12 to "fill" My brother thought it may have been $20 to fill, but I think it was only a two buck difference, myself. This is when I first knew we were basically poor.
There may be a few versions of what poor was back then, and we were not "no food, no shelter" poor, we were medically poor and that itself will tell the tale of a future life. I have had the same job for 35+ years and the biggest attraction was having health insurance and dental insurance for me and my now family, although the pay out on dental insurance has basically sucked forever. It is a mysterious and secret society, the dental "trade" is, don't ya think? They never tell you what they are doing and what kind of materials and how far down they are grinding and how they really know where the root is when they do a root canal. And the bill has always described (God knows) what kind of procedure?and at the bottom is the all important exorbitant co-pay for you to pay right away, that day. How the hell does anyone know what their bill will be? How do we know if we have enough cash on hand? And how do we skip the embarrassment of that? We Don't! That's how...
They say that dentists have a high suicide rate? If that is true, then trust me, before they kick their own buckets, they have most likely been golfing twice a week, traveling to their Lake House in Tahoe every few months or been driving around in a Lamborghini for a few years. And some of them even have girlfriends or wives (or both) that they buy fancy jewelry and take to fancy dinners, I would imagine...They not only have a license to practice Dentistry, but they have had a super secret course in college that told them how to be great "pirates" I remember telling off one dentist that refused to give me my new partial because I still owed them, like $55. I told him that he was holding my teeth for "ransom" and he got all pissy with me. Strike a nerve there Doc? So why the high suicide rate?
Hmm. .. always striving for perfection and never attaining it could be one reason. Because of course they all want to do their best to give us those perfect shiny white teeth and million dollar smiles, right?? Or is it because they really have charged us a million dollars for all that dental work?
I got an "estimate" for my permanent bridge that was thousands of dollars and has continued to cost me even more to "correct" all of his subsequent screw-ups. Gee, what shall I do? Get those fancy new teeth or buy a brand new car? Dentists are so uptight and they have no sense of humor... poor guys, that must be why they start to feel all bad about themselves and start looking for bridges to jump from? Or maybe it is the guilt they have over playing Captain Hook for so many years? Pay the money or walk the plank or just walk around "toothless" everyone! Of course, they are making poor bastards like us walk the plank on their yachts, you know...
So I thought I had finally found a good family dentist when my kids were little and we were all getting our dental work done. He was a busy guy, really busy...( His office manager was also his girl
So over the years, living in the same house, I would shop for different offices and stay just until they did something either weird or made me feel uncomfortable, which was both for Dr Busy Guy. I went to a dentist that used to tell dirty jokes, in fact he was the Pirate, and not a nice one, like Jack Sparrow. He even had nerve to say inappropriate stuff in front of my husband. Some might think he said funny stuff, but I can't even repeat the crap he said. When I found out he was telling the same jokes to my pretty, young single mother girlfriend, that was it...What a jackass he turned out to be. I know some people who still go to him, no problem, no dirty jokes; so maybe Dr Jack Ass had a thing for 'blondes'
I went to another guy whose office was almost an hour away and I liked him, but the distance was too much. He had a practice with his daughter and I wondered about female dentists so I tried going to one closer to home and it was looking good, great office, they took good care and time to make sure my dental plan was ok and I was even willing to get a Dental Credit Card. There was one little thing they forgot to do though and that was check and see if they took my insurance, and I had given that info on the phone before my appointment. After all that, they didn't take it and so it was what it was.
My brother and his wife and a whole lotta co-workers had been going to a guy and they were all happy with him, so why not? I practically had letters of recommendation! So that is how I became involved with my current Dental Office. The office staff was friendly and even checked to see if they took my insurance. And the assistants made sure he didn't drop tools on your bosom. I thought he was "the one" Although he was Door # 1: Dental work and new smile, not door #2: a new car. I shoulda took the car, at least I could have traded that in.
So back to my front tooth...after all those years, it was "fractured" and I was at risk of losing it and I sure didn't want that. So was I gonna buy a "used" smile or a brand new shiny smile? The difference was, oh gee, a few thousand $$ but I was gonna "treat" myself and get the new one. It took a crown, 2-3 root canals and a procedure called crown lengthening? WTH? to get even close to getting this smile, and when I did, I was SO, so happy! Finally, after all these years... a permanent bridge, and a partial. ( I lost a lot of teeth and had several failure to launch "root" canals which led to the loss of several teeth ( like I said, Genetics suck) I figured I was finally set as far as my teeth were, that is until...
I ended up in the ER with a gum infection a few days later, it was the weekend of course and that's gonna cost you a $100 co-pay for your medical insurance this time. The ER Doctor was young enough to be my kid, for crying out loud and she took care of it by giving me an exam that made me cry out loud and then gave me proper Antibiotics to go. When I went for my re-check, the "car dentist" blew me off like it was a drag race. So I tried to blow him off and forget about it. Until... yes, another 'until' my permanent bridge went AWOL and dropped right out of my mouth. When I went back, he explained it away by saying something about the glue not being right and possibly recalled. Excuse me, the glue did what??? so he used the proper glue this time and glued them back in and didn't even "charge" me for that visit. Hmm...
That was when I knew...Dr Car sold me a lemon and it was some kind of sour deal alright. I had nothing but problems from then on. Chronic Pain, which meant I needed more root canals, and Oh, he could do them, I didn't need the specialist, who I had seen prior to my involvement with him: Dr Know did a root canal that did not hurt or fail. Why did he not want me to go back to him? I am thinking he didn't want a fellow practitioner to say "What The Hell?" when he looked into a patients' mouth, that's what I am thinking. So like an idiot, I let him proceed. That was strange, though,because I was having so much pain that he started the root canal and gave me antibiotics and vicodin for several days until he could finish it. Dr. Know did it all in one shot! Crap...
Ok, so that was that? Oh no because it happened again: same M.O. same pain which needed antibiotics and vicodin first this time and then when I went back and told him that I still had pain, he decided to start the first half of the root canal anyway, which brings me to the present time. Thank God we finally got here, right? Game Over! I still needed the second half of the root canal and the pain obviously meant there was some kind of storm brewing, an infectious one at that! So Comes the Weekend and Pain and swelling was excruciating enough that I decided to go to ER and this time pay a $150 co-pay just to get a CT scan and make sure I had no infection traveling to my brain. Luckily, it only showed a large abcess located where? Right where he had started the root canal. If I'm lying, I'm dying...
The ER doctor didn't think to change my antibiotics to what we call " bigger guns". Hell, I had already told him to do a CT scan and give me a dose of Cleocin and Toradol for pain IV. I guess it was up to me to coax him into a change of medication as well. My lip was now so swollen, I looked like I did this on purpose. Women pay big $$ for this and I only got "half a Kardashian lip"
So now what? I wanted a specialist to look at this and called the Oral Surgeon that I was referred to and got only a busy signal. Not for nothing, but my cousin Becky in Indiana "found" me a dental office that took Aetna and they actually answered the phone and could see me today! She and my sister Cee had been on a hunt all morning. And as it turns out, I had been to this office years ago and so they took me as an "existing" patient. The office I was referred to with the busy signal must have been too busy for ER followup pts, even if they were ON CALL!
And so Dr Nitrous looked at me and the x-rays I brought with me and asked what kind of work Dr Car did underneath this bridge work? How the hell would I know? It is a super secret, mysterious mystery to me! So he did something mysterious and relieved the pressure I had in my lip and even ordered Big Gun Antibiotics. So first he said, I didn't need him unless this kept happening and in which case I would need all teeth pulled and implants placed. ( Door # 3, finally) So I thought about the Vacation Home I could be buying instead and decided I would need help from a higher power this time. Dr Nitrous said he would call Dr Car and let me know what kind of plan would be in order, which he did, and of course, he suggested I complete the root canal with Dr Car ( And live happily ever after?)
No way! I am going back to Dr. Know to finish the job and then maybe I will go to, I dunno, Lenny the Lawyer to see if he can finish something else for me...
Names have been changed to protect The Guilty...
Let's give them something to talk about, a little mystery to figure out...
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