Monday, April 19, 2010

Dentist Visit

I was overdue to say the least. But I've tried to eliminate sugar from my diet and I do floss and brush regularly since I was told my breath smells like spoiled milk. So Dr. Herold over on Islington went over my choppers and didn't tsk tsk me too much. In fact, I felt in good hands. He was professional and told me things he's said a thousand times but he really told them to me like I was the first person who had ever been to a dentist. He actually said, "Tooth decay is caused by bacteria on your teeth that take the sugar you eat and turn it into plaque which can eat a hole in the tooth."
I nodded gravely.
"I'm going to check your gums now. The gums are the fleshy tissue that surround the bone. Open wide....I'm going to check the depth of your gum connectivity. 1-3 is normal. 4 indicates recession of the flesh and can lead to periodontal disease. 5 and above indicate disease. Open wide."
I had some #4s and the Caribbean seascape on the ceiling had the inspirational sayings like, "Dance at home - when you're alone." or "Live today." and "Do what you love."
OK.
Then the doctor showed me a picture of teeth and gums and bone.
"In this day and age, there is no reason you should lose a tooth. If your gums are healthy then we can save all your teeth."
I thanked him for telling me good information. I listened this time. I want to keep my teeth or should I say I don't want to lose my teeth because losing teeth is a nightmare of painful chewing and crowns and dentures and bridges. My buddy George was always supergluing his bridge back together. He swallowed part of it in a nap. Root canal surgery. It's awful and I don't want it. The dentist also talked about mouth cancer. Is there something I can do about that? No smoking or chewing tobacco.
There are so many things out there trying to kill me. I don't really worry about these things like you would think based on my obsessive concern for water and wolves and tennis. In fact, I translate a sudden bump in my chest to something external. Like, I'm having a mild heart attack BECAUSE America hasn't declared war on anyone in the 60 years of war with everyone. Like this country is all a big fraud...ERGO my heart valves are malfunctioning.
I heard a health insurance company sends its associates to golf school so they can play better golf when they have golf meetings. And people wonder why I don't have insurance. My theory is that if someone is going to be playing golf then it's going to be me. I'm not paying for anyone to take putting lessons.

I'm going to go play tennis now and get this out of my mind.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Amy Wiseman left an instrument in my mouth, after I jumped out of the chair, since then I haven't been for 14 yrs, I went to Dr Harvey, and he thought I drank alot of soda, The Irony is.... I hate soda, and like beer. Four visits later,,,one quadrant at a time, I am done, clean and fit to drink again, nice job on the bike today,

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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.