SerenTEETHpity

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ah Ha ha, Dentists. 

I used to think I had dentists outsmarted.  When I was 12 or so, we went to Costa Rica and what a deal we got from having our uncle in law do our dental work.  

It was like HALF Price! Less even! 

Our relative was so nice that he would jest with us about maybe moving to the US and what I thought, "hey you really should?"  I had no idea about being opportunistic or about the city or about trusting the wrong people.  I was raised by my mother alone and most of the time she was mean which translated into English means since I was the firstborn, I got fed up easy when things didn't go my way, which was rare.  But she was very strict with our studies and always had us doing chores like vacuuming or folding clothes or cleaning our rooms of toys.  

In hindsight, what a LUXURY to not have to sweep mud and feed pigs like she had to, I was so "ensconced" from reality to think back on it.  

So some years later, I remember that first day in his dental office and he is counting off cavities like he's doing a class on Sesame Street.  My brother had 15, my sister 12, and I had like 17.  I didn't doubt the man since I knew I had done a LOT of eating in my life. 

Hmmf. 

Fast forward 5 years later and my mother takes me to another dentist in New Orleans and he finds ONE cavity.  You can imagine my doubt mounting up quite a bit at that point.  Here we were all full of holes and metal and there he was with our big pile of cash from discounted work and merited with a job well done.  My parents BOTH have missing teeth so it must have seemed to them quite the luxury to be able to afford a dentist for a change but MAN!  

So I tell my mother and she doubts me like she always does.  She is SO trusting and charming to people in her 40 people village, it doesn't occur to her that PEOPLE in the city could give a rat's ass for how good you look or how charming you are.  They have 40 people they have to meet PER DAY and your charm and talent for positiveness to them just reeks of someone that is used to bending the norm... which gives them a GREAT IDEA of how much to charge you.  

As it becomes clear that he ripped us off, our entire family gets wind of my mother's IRE and for some reason, she starts to have problems in the family.  See how that works?  She's done someone wrong by complaining, just because she couldn't let that RAT get away with his opportunism.  So that's business for you, if you've already signed the deal, paid the man, lost the receipt, just let it go.  People don't want you diggin up old stuff, because the world is FILLED with opportunists and they generally all agree that visiting the past is WORSE for the richest of us.  

That's what good people in crime are all about, getting away with it, which is pretty hard to do when you LIVE NEAR each other.  

Ok, so anyways, the main thing about dentists is since I was very young I haven't trusted them.  Even though I liked the numbing medicine and the Peroxide rinse, I was skeptical.  Later as I found myself the recipient of Dental Insurance, I thought it was a good time to go have my mouth checked out.  And it starts to go good.  We have appointments and cleaning sessions and this one hygienist is like in her older 30s and I am like 25 but MAN did I want some of that mouth.  

Errm, ok sidetracked, so it doesn't last.  I am going to University full-time on the company's dime and btw I work full-time in customer service which is one of the most stressful jobs there are.  In time I start to show up late or miss an appointment because I overslept or just had a scheduling conflict.  The "doctor" then one time really overdoes it with the needle this one time.  terrible yeah?  But what do I know so for some reason instead of having like a short numbing sensation for like an hour after the visit, I have a huge swell and numbness that lasts right into nightfall and beyond.  then I get called and they ask me to fill in for someone else and I do and then they get nice again and suddenly I fill like a PONG ball.  Later he starts to eye my wisdom teeth and the hygienist makes a sigh and a comment like maybe I don't really need them removed and POOF I'm out of there!  I didn't have to go TOO far back in my memory to know when opportunity was knocking.  

So I spent almost NO time at a dentist from then on.  I went 10 years without help mostly because I washed my mouth often and with my parents there as an example, I never forgot about keeping up with my teeth.  Using the methods he used, I started to floss and really just pick at my gums to make sure there was never sediment.  

And that brings me to what I wanted to mention today because the days of perfect teeth for me are over.  Recently as I got more stressed out and was forced off of my casual drinking which is great for keeping your teeth sanitized btw, I have instead begun to consume large amounts of coke and coffee.  And the coffee isn't so bad as long as you rinse with water but COKE is a disability all unto itself.  

Coke wears out your lining in your teeth and in your mouth.  After drinking a lot of it, food will start to "stick" to your teeth more and to your gums.  As you become more accustomed to "ignoring" food that you would normally remove easily and swallow from you teeth, you become SOFT to letting food remain overnight, which if the last thing you drank was Coke, has been there with the acid from the drink for 8 hours.  This behavior of not rinsing is most especially the case if you are depressed about something.  

And now after having survived more than a decade without a dentist, I have a big cavity right smack on my front tooth and in the front.  And you can't fix a hole.  You can't go in there and fill that up with white stuff because it's just too obvious.  

All I can do now is warn others.  Watch out for cavities.  They happen slow but they happen and they stay that way once they are there.  All you can do now is replace the TOOTH which makes your smile now a fake one, or let the dentists do their work and drill up the hole and fill it in with metal and whatnot.  

The sad fact was that I was feeling around another cavity at the back of my gums and I thought to myself, this is NOTHING like the cavities that guy said I had when I was 12.  These cavities are HUGE.  

A while back, one of my fillings fell out.  That's the only one that did.  The rest of them have been there since I was 12 and I am over 40 now.   Now, there's just one question to answer for myself... was that the filling of the EXPENSIVE doctor in New Orleans that shined a light to how terrible my uncle-in-law was?  

...the one whose fillings have all survived, where his didn't?