I fear nothing will save it.
Three weeks ago the rear of the tooth falls out in two brown stained pieces. Late
last week during flossing, what remains hits the bottom teeth with a metallic
clunk. Finally, two transparent shards of enamel peel away. A Niagara-sized
hole remains with a French alp either side. There’s not enough there to
construct a new tooth-like structure on.
I can hear Madame M tut-tutting
as she peers into the ruins. She’ll put several or no alternatives to me in her
lisping Slavic English and I’ll take a punt at what’s to come and grant her carte blanche with my oral needs.
In fact she informs me I’ve
lost one and a half teeth. The half she can save, the other she will build up
with a temporary filling. She won’t guarantee its life beyond 24 hours. And
this she does after an hour’s painstaking work. Then she puts the real alternatives
to me.
My upper jaw needs a total overhaul—six
teeth need to be removed, four on the right, two on the left. I will have a
temporary plastic plate till the sockets heal over, the swollen gums recede, the
jaw shrinks into the empty sockets. Then, a permanent denture. This is the
cheap option. For $30k I can have six implants, no denture. My compromised
lower denture will be replaced too.
In all I will be minus a dozen
teeth, four each upper and lower on the right, two each upper and lower on the
left. For thirty years I have known this is how it would end, though not the
exact numbers of teeth or their exact locations.
I have already guessed and she
affirms my supposition that I have them out at the start of at least a month’s
holiday from work. I will live on soup, then, and maybe thereafter. I can kiss
next year’s cycling in France good-bye.
Who can argue with a dentist?
Especially an imposing creature from Krakow who wields her instruments like a
medieval torture-master. I am in her hands.
Rock on.
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