the slippery slope

Well, it's finally happened. I am finally the clueless old woman. I've forgotten how to spell, I can't remember words, I leave the oven on, and now I can't even tell if my dental work is there.

Now that our personal financial fortunes have been lifted somewhat, I decided to get some dental work done...a crown glued back on that came off over two years ago and a repair of the filling I recently lost in my most back molar.

I lost the crown on an airplane en route to my niece's Bat Mitzvah while eating a muffin several years ago and just never got around to getting it glued back on. I didn't really have a dentist and I didn't want to pay an unrealistic amount for some guy to cover his ass.

My first encounter with this new dentist in this small town was to have my crown glued back on. He wanted to make a new one to the tune of $950 because the old one no longer fit perfectly due to shifting.

Just make the old one work I told him. So then I got the 'I'm not responsible if something bad happens' disclaimer (which is in itself a sad commentary of the lack of personal responsibility and the blame game in this country) and then he did make it work and did a good job of it too.

I went back two weeks later, yesterday, to get the filling repaired. Mouth numbed, he drilled away the last fragments of the old composite and replaced it with whatever it is that dentists currently use for fillings. It was quick and easy relatively speaking then he slapped me on my rump and sent me out to pasture.

Just kidding. Not about the quick and easy part, that part was true.

When I got home, I waited a bit, and then fixed a late breakfast of oatmeal with banana. By the time I finished eating, the numbness had mostly dissipated and I felt around in my mouth with my tongue, testing the new filling and, and, wait a minute, there's a deep hole in my molar, where's the damn filling!

So I called the dental office to explain that my brand new filling not even two hours old is gone.

Three hours later, I'm back in the dentist's chair and he's telling me that yes, it is still there. That the tooth is wallowed out but filled and shored up. Well, alrighty then, that makes me feel really foolish. I'm sure everyone in the office had a good laugh at the clueless old woman who is so demented she can't even tell if her dental work is there.

It still feels really deep, as deep as it felt after the old filling came out and I don't remember it feeling that deep with the old filling but perhaps my shifting bite is why it came loose and broke apart in the first place.

Anyway, in the immortal words of Rosanne Rosannadanna...

Never mind.