Sailor does dentistry. . .

I had an accident this morning involving my front tooth which has a veneer. It was placed there to match the rest of my teeth. Apparently this one was damaged some time in my life and was a different color. Its neighbor, the other front tooth was broken off at my tender age of 8. I had just brought in my new front teeth and I fell flat on my face, tripped by my dear friend Zoe, as we swung around and around a pole in our basement. Our Barbies were flying and each time around the pole meant another mile. In our minds, somehow, we figured we might be able to overtake the other and win the "race". What ever we were racing for, I have no idea, but in any case, I went down and saw my tooth skid across the floor in front of me.

We hurried to the dentist, my mom forgot the bread in her oven and got stopped by a police officer on the way.

My dentist had told mom many times what beautiful teeth I had and I remember his face falling when he saw my broken tooth.

Thus began my lifelong visits to the dentist to have yet another cap glued onto the poor stub of what was left of my tooth. Because I would be growing, they installed inexpensive caps, and inevitably I would bite down on a hard candy or roll and break my tooth all to shreds.

In the course of replacing caps, my dentist moved away and we were left to find someone else. One of these "dentists" couldn't get the cap to fit, so he ended up filing down my front bottom teeth to accommodate the lousy-fitting cap. Once, when I was in fourth grade,  in exasperation my Mom told me I would just have to wait until there was more money to get another replacement. We had school pictures, and I didn't smile. To this day she looks at that picture and regrets not getting another cap for me. No worries Mom. I survived.

My perfect teeth stayed nearly perfect until my senior year in High School when I discovered a cavity in one of my back teeth. My first filling. It made me so sad. But that was just the beginning of many trips to the dentist for other fillings. And I finally received the porcelain crown I'd been waiting for since I was eight years old.

After moving to this town, I was told the "porcelain" crown was not really porcelain. And my dentist replaced it with a REAL porcelain crown. Like the city streets that get dug up to replace an old sewer line after they have just been refinished, my crown had to have a hole drilled in the back to do a root canal on the poor stub underneath. After this, the other front tooth turned color and my dentist offered a veneer to match the crown.

Well, today, maybe 15 years later that veneer gave up and chipped as I was trying to pop open a cap from a container. I know, I know, I shouldn't have been using my teeth to open anything, but hind sight is so much better. After I heard the crunch, I realized I had not broken the plastic cap, I had broken my veneer. It was longer than my tooth, so the result was not so pretty. I had a chip out of the veneer near the middle, but the outside edge was still longer and jagged. I called my dentist. Of course it is Saturday. Isn't that when all the bad stuff happens. I was given his cell number on the answering machine, but he didn't answer that or his home phone. On the answering machine, I told them I might have to resort to some home remedy if I didn't hear from them.

That's when we got out the Dremmel tool. I laid myself out on the floor with pillows under my head under the brightest light in the house and asked my sweet husband to do the work. As I watched in a hand-held mirror and directed him what I wanted, a bevel here, a little more off the top there, my dear Sailor drilled delicately with the Dremmel tool.  At least it is straight across at the bottom. It doesn't feel that great, but I am so grateful for his steady hand and willingness to try his hand at dental work. What a great man I married.

Thanks, Friend. You are the BEST.

xxoxoxxoxoxxo