The other night
as I was flossing my teeth while gazing into the bathroom mirror, I noticed two
small black spots on two of my bottom teeth. I grabbed my toothbrush and
brushed them, hard. But the black spots remained.
So now I'm concerned I might be sprouting a crop of cavities, which actually doesn't surprise me. I mean, it's been a while since I've had a dental checkup.
That’s because my situation is similar to the couple's in The Gift of the Magi. It's the story about a husband and wife who were too poor to buy Christmas gifts for each other, so
she cut off and sold her long hair to buy him a chain for his pocket watch, not
knowing he'd sold his watch to buy her some decorative combs to wear in her
long hair.
Based on the same type of irony in that story, I figure I would have to yank out all of my teeth and put them underneath my pillow, then hope an incredibly rich and very generous Tooth Fairy would pay me a visit...so I could afford to see a dentist.
I hate to admit it, but I actually miss my old dentist, Attila the Driller.
Ever since he left the practice, I haven’t been able to keep track of the
number of dentists who have come and gone. I’m surprised the office doesn’t
have revolving doors – or a conveyor belt with dentists sitting on it.
The last time I had an appointment, due to the unexpected loss of a filling, I had no idea
which dentist would appear. I was hoping it would be the one I’d had during my
previous visit because he'd inflicted a lower degree of pain than most of
the others. But as luck would have it, a totally new guy entered the room.
My immediate thought was, “Great – another one I’ll have to train,”
because I have certain pet peeves whenever I have a dental appointment. One of them is not getting the water suctioned out of my mouth fast enough, so I either have to swallow it or choke. Another is x-ray overkill. One night I sat down and calculated just how many dental
x-rays I’ve had over the years and I lost count at 550. I figure that by now, I
should be able to get a job standing at the top of a lighthouse and guiding
ships at sea in the dark of night…with just the glow from my head.
Anyway, this new dentist took one look at the hole in my tooth (a front one on the bottom) where the filling had fallen out, and the first words out of his mouth were, “Let’s get an x-ray.”
I groaned. “Can’t
you just replace the filling?”
He shook his head, “I want to know exactly what I’m dealing with first.” He then
explained he had the latest state-of-the-art digital x-ray equipment that
practically was radiation-free.
So, although reluctantly, I allowed the tooth to be x-rayed. The fancy new equipment enabled me to see the tooth on a screen right before me. And what I saw resembled the underground tunnel system in one of those ant farms the toy
stores used to sell when I was a kid.
“Hmmm,” the dentist said, which I knew from years of experience never was a
good sign. “It appears you had a lot of hidden decay underneath the
filling that fell out and it’s now decayed all the way into the pulp of the
tooth. In fact, you’re also forming an abscess.”
He then began to list all of the procedures and paraphernalia I would need to
salvage the tooth. It sounded like an inventory list from “Dental Supplies R
Us.” The final total was approximately the equivalent of a down payment on Windsor
Castle.
“I’m going to do something called the cold-tooth test on your other bottom
teeth,” the dentist then announced.
In the gazillion dental visits I'd had in my life, I'd never heard of such a
test. But my gut immediately told me it probably wasn't going to be fun.
“It involves putting a freezing-cold substance on one tooth at a time,” he
explained. “When you feel the pain in the nerve, I want you to raise your left
hand. When the pain ceases, I want you to lower your hand.”
His explanation did nothing to make the test sound any better. I think the
words “pain” and “nerve” might have had something to do with it.
Sure enough, he pressed something that felt like an ice cube against the first
tooth.
“Arrggh!” I cried and jumped as the nerve in my
tooth viciously stabbed me in protest.
“I said to raise your left hand,” he tersely reminded me.
I raised it.
“Now lower it when the pain goes away,” he repeated, removing the freezing device, or whatever it was called, from
the tooth.
I lowered my hand.
He then did the same thing to the next tooth…and the next. Each time he
did, I shouted, “Arrggh!” And each time, he scolded me and reminded me to raise
my hand.
By the fifth tooth, I was ready to raise my hand…somewhere directly between his
eyeballs.
"I think you should change your last name to Grey,” I muttered when the test finally was over.
The dental assistant burst out laughing.
The dentist, however, just sat there, looking clueless. “You mean like in
Grey’s Anatomy?” he asked.
The assistant laughed even harder.
“No,” I said. “Like in that novel, Fifty Shades of Grey, where
the main character, Christian Grey, is a sadist who enjoys torturing women!”
“Oh,” he said, his expression serious. “I guess I may have to read it, then.”
I then asked him when he could do
the work on my tooth.
“I don’t do root canals,” he said, shaking his head. “I have an endodontist who
does, but he's here only on certain days of the month.”
I also knew from experience that just saying the word “endodontist”
added at least another $500 to my bill. After all, the guy was a specialist.
And anyone who's "special" at anything is expensive.
“I don’t have dental insurance,” I said. “So I doubt I can afford all of this.”
“Well,” the dentist said, “your only other option is to have the tooth extracted and then get a partial denture."
“And how much is that?” I asked.
“Oh, only about $2,000 to $3,000."
I didn't know which planet he hailed from, but in my world, the word “only” is
reserved for amounts like $10 or $20, not $2,000 or $3,000.
Even worse, unlike my old dentist, this one didn't accept time-payments. In
fact, there was a notice posted in the waiting area that said if you couldn't
pay for your visit on that same day, then to reschedule your appointment for a
day when you could!
Alas, I had to visit my bank and apply for an equity line of credit to pay for the
root canal and crown. The interest rate was around three percent at the time.
It's now up to 10.5 percent. So most of my payments thus far have gone straight
toward the interest.
I suppose when I finally finish paying off the loan for my last dental procedure, then I’ll go have these two black spots on my teeth checked out.
That is, if I still have any teeth left.
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
