December 4, 2008

I Broke a Tooth Today

That is never a good thing.

It began as a delightful outing with Lunch Friend Lisa on Thursday instead of our usual Monday. I chomped, in a most lady-like fashion, a moderate bite of a roast beef sandwich. The beef, ever so tender, was sliced paper thin on a soft onion roll, its flavor enhanced by a layer of red onion marmalade and almost-but-not-quite-enough horseradish mayo. Tasty.

The sandwich is not to blame. But it set off a miserable chain reaction of events. As the headline announces, a tooth broke. In my mouth.

When I break something, I don't do it halfway. Oh no. This is not a simple break. This break is complex. This break had the dentist saying, "Oh why did you have to do this on a Thursday?!"

Restoration of my tooth will require three separate phases, the first of which will begin tomorrow. My gum line will be reshaped. Doesn't that sound pleasant? This break is going to cost us a small fortune. Yes, this tooth is that important.

The incident inspired dialogue with friends about why dental work is so damned expensive. We debated. We did not resolve. We did, however, commiserate.

Before this broken tooth debacle a friend recently queried, "I love living in a modern world, don't you?" I agreed with her then and it applies here too. Imagine being a pioneer and breaking a tooth? Let's not even go there.

Oh yeah, I'm digging.
Digging deep to find the bright side for my current condition.
I think I'm doing a damned fine job.

.

13 comments:

eb said...

So, did you break a front tooth and now, coupled with your fabulous hair cut, you can have a starring role on Hee-Haw?

weese said...

yeah...this totally warrents a picture. the hair - the tooth. c'mon.
i totally feel your (financial) pain on this one. I am in the process now of having on tooth recrowned,and as you know am missing two teeth one of which they want to implant.
which is totally NOT going to happen anytime soon.
$$$

Anonymous said...

Ugh, this summer I broke an arm. I simply fell down, landed funny, and broke my arm. Why can we break so easily? Seriously -- roast beef? Our own body weight? It just seems so wrong.

WenWhit said...

You've been a real trooper, baby :)

agoodlistener said...

That's the worst. Anything to do with teeth. Really hurts. Must be because it's closer to your brain or something. Hope it works out. Drugs--ask for lots of drugs...not that I know anything about that, of course.

SassyFemme said...

Oh no! You poor thing. Hope your dentist is giving you lots of things to numb you up during and afterwards!

I have to have six fillings replaced in the next six months so I don't later have to have crowns. The cost is crazy for six, but it beats six crowns. (Hmmm, that sounds like something in a card game.)

Val said...

You just gotta post a pic of this big toothless grin! :) please????!!!

Jorge said...

As someone who worked in the dental field I have some insight. But more importantly I have some advice. So important in fact that I will skip the insight.

When your dentist takes impressions for your soon to be crown, demand (don't request, demand) he take upper and lower full arch impressions and a seperate bite registration.

It's OK if you don't know what I mean, your Dr. does. But he's not going to like it. That's because doing it his way is faster and cheaper. My way is longer and more expensive. My way will cost him probably an extra 10 minutes of chair time and and extra $20 in materials.

It will actaully save him chair time when he places the final crown becuase he won't have to adjust it much, but you won't be able to convince him of that.

Nowadays most Doc's have an all in one kind of impression tray that does everything at once.

That's great if you're the one making the crown, but since your Doc is going to send it to someone who's never looked in your mouth it's not enough information to come out with a really good fitting crown.

Think of it like sending someone a map to a party at your home. If everyone invited lives in the neighborhood then you only need to send a map that shows a few nearby surface streets.

But if your guests are all travling more than, say, 500 miles to visit they're more likely to find your house if they have a map that's larger and has more detail.

When Doc objects, tell him you have full faith and trust in his abilibties, but you've been told that the labs always (whether they admit it or not) appreciate getting as much information as possible.

The people who've taken this advice from me have never regretted it.

My wife, who's had several crowns, will tell anyone that when she asked our doc to take the impressions my way she got the best fitting crown she's ever had.

And that one was a remake after one that was made the fast way turned out to be so bad it had to be scrapped.

Good Luck

Val said...

love your new blog look! :)

nina michelle said...

yikes! good luck with that! I hope you are feeling better.

Merry Christmas!

nina

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dony said...

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