Ok, so I whined and moaned yesterday about not receiving the replacement shipment from Current Catalog and how awful the woman was to me on the phone. Sure enough, I got home and there was the package on my stoop. So I sort of owe an apology... the order did eventually come, and I am keeping the things because they aren't ALL Easter items and the set of cards I can use next year. But, I am still not ordering from them again given the incredible length of time it takes to get a package and the rudeness of the customer service woman yesterday. So there is my half assed apology.
As indicated yesterday I started down a 4-5 week long relationship with my dentist that will cost a small fortune. But really though, I can buy a new smile and further eliminate eating my own teeth (old chipped porcelain off my old bridges - yum) for nearly $3600. Less expensive than most used cars I would consider and a used car (that I don't need) wouldn't last 20 years. I guess it's a deal!
I had a mouthful of problems with many years of orthodontia as a kid. When they realized that I would never lose my baby cuspids I was set up for bridgework when the braces came off at age 17 or so. 16 years later and they have seen better days. Not only do they look awful, but are losing their structural integrity. Because materials have advanced so much in the last decade (wheee! I love materials science for more reasons than just my career right now) I can now have all porcelain bridges, no more ugly metal.
So I am on the docket to receive in about 4.5 weeks two brand new, white, all porcelain bridges to replace the bridges replacing my missing cuspids. I figure this will amount to nearly 6-7 hours in the dental chair with the most pain probably having been yesterdays new front tooth. In addition to the two side bridges, my front tooth was horribly miscolored courtesy of my obsession to be a gymnast just like Nadia as a child. I whacked the tooth with my knee doing a front off a springboard and broke the root of the tooth. So over the last 10 years, it has started discoloring and for some reason bucking out a little more than the other. So yesterday it was filed down to a stump and a temporary attached while we wait for the new custom tooth to be made in a lab. What is frightening to me is how happy I was with the temporary over my old tooth yesterday. The shape isn't exactly perfect and the color is a shade off, but damn near close AND the offset is gone!
I know that as a kid early on I exhausted my lifetime dental benefit under my dad's insurance. We continued to plod on of course, what else can you do? But I truly wonder how much money has gone into my mouth. I also wonder what today's advances would have done for me. I wouldn't have bridges I am sure, I would have two implants instead. (Which I did want when recently discussing options, but it wasn't practical when I have 5 perfectly good "stumps".)
Leif and any future children can inherit any of my bad qualities, but PLEASE let them get AB's teeth!
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