one tooth shy of a full set

I finally bit the bullet and went in and had my relatively healthy loose tooth with it's gold crown pulled, fourth tooth from the center upper left (this is the tooth that would glint when I smiled for pictures). It's been loose for years, at least a decade, maybe even 15, maybe even longer. It's been loose but stable in that it never bothered me, never the source of pain so I ignored it. Long about last May though it became unstable, shifting around and if I wasn't careful when I ate it would become misaligned and then I would bite down on it and oh man, that was like an electric shock to my brain. Then it would firm up some, then get even looser, then firm up some, over and over but the last month or so the firm up stages shortened from a couple of weeks to a couple of days and finally it was impacting my ability to eat and I was afraid it was either going to come out while I was eating or in my sleep and I would choke to death on it. I mean this baby was loose. I could waggle it all around and up and down. I could have pulled it myself if I wasn't such a coward so I checked out my insurance which only covers an exam, x-rays, and a cleaning every six months and that's it. Any work that has to be done, I pay. And what's up with that? Why doesn't health insurance cover dental work when bad teeth can affect your heart. Why do we have to get separate insurance to cover restorative work. OK, rhetorical question...money. Isn't that the reason for everything here in this country?

Anyway, I went in yesterday morning, they took x-rays, the dentist numbed me up, wiggled it once, wiggled it again, gave a little pull and it slipped right out. 

The only thing holding it in was the gum, he said, and showed me the x-rays...all the bone had disintegrated, and because it was spreading to the two teeth on either side, a bridge is not an option as it would cause those two teeth to become loose as well. After the extraction the assistant took a full set of x-rays and I went back this morning for the cleaning and exam. I have two teeth that need immediate attention, two new crowns if the decay under the two damaged old ones (and I mean old) hasn't gone into the root. Only one of them bothers me so I'm getting that one taken care of next week and I'll address the other one in a month or two. And since I now have insurance that will pay for cleaning twice a year hopefully that will keep the periodontitis from getting worse.

Now that it's not raining every day the road crew is back at work. Monday they used the big heavy roller vehicle to flatten out the worst of the washboard and ruts and today they were dumping bank sand on top of the previous layer and grading and flattening it.

Besides the mosquitoes which are horrendous out there, the white ginger really liked all that rain. This is the fullest bloom I've had all year on it.

I don't know if the rain brought these on or if it's just their time of year to bloom but the bromeliads I took when our stained and fused glass artist friend Gene lost his studio several years ago and was given 2 months to vacate the property and he was just going to abandon them because he had far too much other stuff to deal with are blooming. They're all crowded in two pots (he had them in the ground) and when I get around to repotting them, I'll separate out several to give back to him.

I also dug up his bird of paradise which is sending out three bloom stalks right now and I took a big staghorn fern (he was giving away all his tropicals and orchids as well). I split the separate staghorn plants and once he was settled returned one to him as well as one of the bridal bouquet plumerias as it was his that I took my cutting from. He finally got his new shop/studio building up and is in the process of getting the bathroom in and all the electrical, thinks he might be ready to come get all his equipment and supplies we've been storing for him by the end of the year. Once all his stuff is back where it belongs maybe I can get the three shop bays cleaned up and reorganized after Harvey since I haven't so much as hosed down the floor since it flooded.

OK, I'm off to yoga!