There isn’t much in the way of Internet service here at night lately. Starting at around 7pm they turn us on and off all night long, so I’m only going to go on once more to post this when I’m ready to if I can get on long enough to do it. After being out and about dealing with people most of the day I don’t need to come home just to do the same thing anyway. I’m going to just relax with writing and reading for most of the night. Maybe finish the Chinese food I got at Safeway’s buffet that’s pretty good, too.

So while I sit here wondering if Paula, the man beater, is in jail tonight (I doubt it since she’s not in AZ or TX and this country considers thoughts and words to speak louder than actions), I can say that the dentist appointment went well. Yay for me.

The staff was very friendly and it does look like my teeth will be salvageable after all. It’s just going to take half a dozen appointments and probably a couple of grand of work to do it, but our insurance covers 80% of it. They’re going to tackle the left side first cuz that side’s worse. All in all, I’m looking at 1 cleaning, 1 pull, 1 bridge and a million fillings. Then I can just go every 6 months for a regular cleaning. My soft tissue around the gums, cheeks and lips looks just fine and my BP is fine too, at 130 over 80.

Next Tuesday morning they’re going to do a cleaning, though not a deep cleaning, and fill the back bottom molar in. Then they’ll pull the “problem child” which is the tooth that died and broke up on top. It’s the I-tooth next to the molar where the retaining wire used to be cemented in behind the teeth. She was confused at first as to the little lump on it which is leftover resin. They may or may not remove the bottom wire. I’ve got a lot of calcium buildup there which makes cleaning harder. We’ll decide later on whether or not to remove it. So Tuesday she’ll pull what’s left of the broken tooth and maybe do another filling or two along with that back molar. After another week or two, they will do the bridge/crowns and finish filling whatever else needs to be filled. I have several old fillings that are cracked that will need replacing.

For today they just did x-rays, and gum measurements, and then decided on a game plan.

My teeth are yellow again too, so she recommended I start with Crest Whitening Strips. I never considered that because I didn’t think anything over the counter would be all that effective, but she did say that I could have them whitened if I wasn’t happy with the results. It’s not covered by insurance, but we can afford the $250 it’d cost. That’s what the new mattress cost. The last time I had them whitened I did it at home using trays. This was way back in 2002.