Dental Adventures
In August, a miricle happened and I was accepted as a patient at Baylor Dental School. Being a patient down there really is about being patient. The work takes forever. First the student dentist has to do a step of the work. Then they have to get a professor to come sign off on that step before they can progress to the next step in a proceedure. It has taken 90 days and multiple visits just to get an official treatment plan. Admittedly, there wasn't an easy solution for what I need done and the work really is beyond the scope of what a 3rd year dental student needs to be doing. There were several points at which I almost got booted out of the program. My cute little dental student is committed to me and she wanted to do the work, so she kept working on getting a plan put together that would make her professors happy.
Finally we came up with a plan. Work has commenced. I had 3 "extractions" yesterday, all in different parts of my mouth. Two of the teeth required the assistance of two professors. It took 3 hours. It was pretty brutal. The student dentist who was assisting lost style points when he lost control of the tools and busted me in the chops. Another time he slipped and stuck a tool into my nose. Style points matter. He was also really rough on my jaw.
The good part is that I don't look or feel as bad as I was afraid I was going to look and feel. The bad part is that it will be months and months before I will have enough molars to eat normally again.
The student dentist is a precious little person. She obviously views me as a grandmotherly figure. I am sure that it is the knitting that causes that. It can't be that I have to be at least an entire decade older than her mother. She picked out a pink toothbrush to give me after she cleaned my teeth. That new toothbrush is now the official at-the-office toothbrush. Pink. For Grandmothers.
Finally we came up with a plan. Work has commenced. I had 3 "extractions" yesterday, all in different parts of my mouth. Two of the teeth required the assistance of two professors. It took 3 hours. It was pretty brutal. The student dentist who was assisting lost style points when he lost control of the tools and busted me in the chops. Another time he slipped and stuck a tool into my nose. Style points matter. He was also really rough on my jaw.
The good part is that I don't look or feel as bad as I was afraid I was going to look and feel. The bad part is that it will be months and months before I will have enough molars to eat normally again.
The student dentist is a precious little person. She obviously views me as a grandmotherly figure. I am sure that it is the knitting that causes that. It can't be that I have to be at least an entire decade older than her mother. She picked out a pink toothbrush to give me after she cleaned my teeth. That new toothbrush is now the official at-the-office toothbrush. Pink. For Grandmothers.