| Biographical Non-Fiction posted June 25, 2024 |
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Sometimes, we learn, too late, what we signed up for.
All the Facts Up Front, Please!
by BethShelby
I’ve had bad teeth all my life. At four, I was in a dental chair getting a baby tooth fixed. The dentist told mom, “I think if this girl wants to still have teeth on her wedding day, she better marry young.” I guess he assumed a prospective husband should check out a girl’s teeth like he might if he was buying a horse. Maybe with dental cost rocketing, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for a guy to know in advance that he might end up in bankruptcy while the dentist was kept busy with his high maintenance bride.
Suffice it to say, by the time I was in my twenties, I was already losing my back teeth. By my thirties, most all of my pearly whites had root canals, caps and crowns, and they were starting to go bad and fall out. By my forties, I had partial dentures. There were wires wrapped around my front teeth holding in my partials. It wasn’t comfortable. My mouth hadn’t felt comfortable in years. I adjusted and tried not to think about it.
A month ago, I had only four front teeth left on the bottom and my partial had loose wires that often managed to hook onto my tongue or the inside of my mouth. I continued trying to cope, until one of the four teeth broke and fell out. Several days later, I swallowed another broken tooth while attempting to eat a sandwich. Pride kicked in and alerted me that I didn’t want to be seen in public like that. It was time for me to act.
My former dentist, now retired, had never encouraged dental implants, although he was trained to do them. He told me my back teeth had been out too long and my gums had shrunk. He also said it was a long process which would take months and involved many visits. But then, I saw several ads showing implants could be done in one day, and I would have a whole mouth full of teeth and a beautiful smile. The advertisement claimed they were extremely affordable.
Be wary of advertisements. I assumed it must be a new procedure done in dental clinics where implants were their only business. Wow! I needed to check that out. At the clinic, they assured me how easy it would be if I qualified as a candidate for the procedure. They x-rayed my mouth and gave me a health questionnaire to fill out. Everything checked out. If I decided to do it, the work would take four hours, or so, and afterward, I would leave with a mouthful of beautiful teeth and a million-dollar smile. It sounded too good to be true. It was.
If I decided to pay up front, rather than the affordable `pay the rest of your life’ way, I would never owe another penny. I don’t do loans, so I paid up front. It wasn’t my usual way of making a decision. I would normally check out other places and do extensive research. This wasn’t cheap, but I wanted it over with quickly. I made a snap decision and said, “Okay, here’s my debit card. Let’s get started.”
I was told I would need to come in a week before surgery, so they could do impressions in order to make sure everything would fit. That made sense. This visit, which I thought would last an hour, lasted three, during which time, I was given a stack of pages consisting of around 25 to 30 sheets of information. I was to read and sign off on all the many things which could go wrong. No one said anything might go wrong before I paid. On the way out, I asked the dentist if he was sure my bones were okay. They had probably been shrinking for 40 years. He said, “Oh, I won’t know that until I drill into them.” Now, he tells me.
I went in for surgery at 8:00 a.m. last Tuesday. The dentist deadened my gums, but I didn’t take anything to relax. That was my choice. I don’t like feeling woozy and out of control. I was in the chair with my mouth stretched out of shape, my gums being sliced apart, and the bone being drilled into until 3 p.m. It felt like a small village was being built inside my mouth. The deadening was subsiding by the time he started sewing up my gums. I decided to tough it out. When I got up from the chair, my body was trembling and I was dizzy. I asked the dentist if he thought my bones were strong enough and he said, “They were a little soft, but I’ve tried to make them work. We’ll see if the implants take.”
With this ordeal behind me, now, I learned the rest of the story, which I should have known from the beginning. I only have a temporary implant in my mouth. It looks like real teeth, but it is my first temporary. In four months, I will come back for my second temporary. If things go well, I’ll get the final teeth in six to eight months. For the first two weeks, I am not to use my teeth for eating. I can only have cold soft food, and it should be just liquids for the first two weeks. I should give up coffee and caffeine permanently. Soft food is recommended until the implants heal. When will that be? Maybe, in six months.
I’m on ten days of antibiotics. The doctor sent in a prescription for a lot of pain killers. My mouth was sore, but the only real pain I was experiencing was in my back, neck and knees from sitting, so I didn’t bother filling the pain prescriptions.
The dentist claimed I was a ‘trooper’. He and his assistant found me hilarious, but since they wouldn’t allow me to close my mouth, so I could talk, I have no idea why. The good news is I can smile without wanting to put a paper bag over my head. I’ve always wanted a bigger mouth and I think they’ve stretched it an inch or so wider. The bad news is I can’t eat real food for the foreseeable future.
If anyone is in doubt what I’ve been ranting about, it is that these clinics dole out the full facts in small doses. I think it is deliberate. If we had all the information up front, we might just settle for a plain old denture like grandpa wore.
Now, I feel better.
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