OK, I’ll admit that I don’t go quite as often as I should. Some people (typically those that read directions before doing anything) go every few months. I go every few years or until something in that region hurts, whichever comes last. My guiding health care philosophy is, “if it’s not causing pain, it must be fine.” That could be risky, the professionals tell me.
My wife set up checkup appointments for us – her six month, mine a couple of years – not sure how many exactly. The office told me it was more than two, which I can’t honestly believe as it seems only a few weeks ago I was there enduring the cleaning, polishing, flossing, and buffing. I’m sure their records are mistaken as my memory is typically infallible. So in I go at 8 in the morning – terrific way to start the day – for a “routine cleaning”. After the hygienist gave me her look of disapproval, followed by a lecture on proper dental care, the pitfalls of tooth and gum decay, and vital statistics that indicate plaque is not your friend, she began with x-rays. Each and every tooth was photographed individually – side, back, front, aerial views, and some elegant camera work I can only assume came up from the lower esophagus. I’m reasonably certain most wedding albums don’t have this many pictures. To make it nicer, technology has dispensed with the little pieces of film they used to put in your mouth. They now insert this bit of equipment the size of a transformer, shifting it 40-50 times to get the best angles. All of this information was transferred to the computer. It’s a safe assumption that my dental files are more extensive that the NSA’s on Edward Snowden.
Now comes the fun part – updating the records. For this, it takes a SWAT team of dental assistants and multiple computer banks of information. I felt like the navigator on the Enterprise. One person took a needle-like armament and poked every opening, front and back, and called out numbers that represented spaces between or around the teeth, or spaces between the teeth and gums, or perhaps buildable lots in the surrounding area. I was told that “1 – 3” is good. I had some of those, along with a few 4’s and 5’s, and one 8, which I guess I could potentially lease as storage. All of these numbers were entered by a second member of the team into the computer spreadsheet, while this process ate up roughly forty-five minutes.
The actual dentist on duty, he or she who had drawn the short straw, came in to do a high-level examination. He poked around a bit, scanned the x-ray files, and informed me a wisdom tooth needed to be removed, which I’d known for years but was avoiding because, well, it didn’t hurt. (See my philosophy laid out clearly above.) Then he told me that the fillings are old. Old? Really? These are from childhood and I’m on Social Security. They should be replaced. What? Would one replace the walls of the Tower of London or spruce up Stonehenge with some new stones because they’re “old”? That reaction may be a little over-the-top, but I say if humans can build castles that stand for centuries and Styrofoam that can last forever in landfills, why can’t we make a dental filling that goes a lifetime plus ten years?
Now, with all the number codes entered into my personal databank and a happy update on future dental needs, we’re off to a new, high-powered, stand up model x-ray machine to take more pictures. This marvel of technology has its own little alcove in the main hallway, and perhaps could have been a Michelangelo sculpture in a previous life. For this, mercifully, they didn’t need to put large aerial surveillance receptors into my mouth. I remember asking, as this was a fair bit easier, why didn’t we just use this baby in the first place? Apparently, this one is for the wide-angle shots, like all of Fenway Park. This is a new machine, I was informed, just having arrived a few weeks before. My person didn’t quite know how to operate it, so we had a couple of “false starts”. We adjusted the height as it told us to, up and down, down to my knees, back up again to tippy toes, then back to where my chin stopped throbbing. Different colored lights flashed and the machine moved slowly in a circular motion clockwise, then counterclockwise, then back again – it was not completely explained what all that meant. Maybe it was to keep me entertained. At some point she realized it wasn’t going as it should and that nothing was being recorded and transferred to the computer screen, so she called in a couple more people who had exponentially more experience, or could with any luck spot why it wasn’t working. By now, it was almost 9:30 and my original hygienist, who was really a lovely person and doing her best, was about three cleanings behind schedule. We all know how they hate to keep people waiting in medical offices, so off she went leaving me with the stand-in.
After this second batch of x-rays, which came out quite nicely so I ordered a set of framed prints, I had to reschedule the actual cleaning, which happened about a month later. Once again, we strolled down memory lane of computer x-rays, and revisited the serious topic of gum disease – why hasn’t that been a PBS mini-series? She poked and prodded to her heart’s delight while I sat there and quietly bled. Generations of decay were removed and sand-blasted to a smooth, buffed finish. My response that I use one of those new, battery-powered rotating toothbrushes met with modest approval, (though not the light round of applause for which I was hoping) and I was told how long to keep the rotating brush on each tooth. Adding up the numbers of teeth I still have, it looks like I need to keep mornings free for thorough dental maintenance..
I will grant you that dental work does not typically generate significant humanitarian awards, nor do workers in dentistry often appear in the lists of most beloved professions. Their work is entirely necessary or we’d all be, like George Washington, chopping down cherry trees and sporting cherry tree teeth. You never hear anyone say, “I’m having my teeth cleaned next week, and I’m really looking forward to it.” Or “Let’s meet at 10, have our teeth checked and then hit the mall.” So, to all specialists in dentistry out there, as well as to the thousands upon thousands of folks designing new dental technologies that cause our dental insurance to skyrocket, a sincere thank-you. A huge shout-out, perhaps a Nobel Prize in Dentistry or new category of Sainthood, to the people that came up with those handy little flossers so we don’t have to pull out yards of floss. Although I did see one brand refer to them as “hi-tech flossers”. It’s still a little piece of string with a plastic handle – let’s not get totally carried away.
So, I’m totally ready for my next, six-month servicing. I just hope to heaven I don’t get in a serious accident or fisticuffs that rearrange my teeth. We’d have to go through the whole x-ray thing all over again.
I'm Thinking...No! 