In this podcast episode, we mask up and go to the dentist! We dig into the details of getting a beautiful smile for Zen Master.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hello! Welcome to the Sally in the Zen podcast. I’m your host, Sally. I’m a Zen Buddhist caregiver to my elderly folks and always in pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome! If you’re not new and returning for another adventure, welcome back my friend.
Today’s episode is going to be a little bit different from our previous episodes. And let me put my first of two disclaimers here right now. The topic for today is not for the faint of heart, and I’m giving you early warning now because it’s talking about going to the dentist.
That’s not to say that it’s going to be anything graphic or gory, no, nothing like that. But I do know people who just cringe when they hear the word “dentists” or go in there thinking about physically hearing the sound of the drill.
So I’m giving you guys forewarning that it’s about going to the dentist and an occasional outburst of strong language. Putting my second disclaimer now – everything that I say in today’s episode are my opinions, my opinions alone. Nobody’s sponsoring me. Nobody’s paying me any money to say what I’m going to say, so that we’re pretty clear about that.
So if you’re still interested and still hanging in, there let’s get started in our Adventures of the Dentures.
In Episode 28, I had touched on briefly how Dad was suffering from a toothache. I took him to my dentist and he ultimately had to have two teeth pulled. Before I go any further, let me give a little background color on where we are with Pop’s teeth, my Zen Master’s teeth.
So he’s old-school and never really cared for his teeth. Never really thought to care for his teeth because he was just focused on raising a family and trying to bring home the bacon. Well, that’s what he says anyway, and yes, that’s what I’ve seen growing up, where he never really valued the dentist. But I think also now I’ve come to understand this because he can’t stand dentists. He despises them because they give him pain. You think of a dentist and you think of pain. You think of the drill. You think of the scraping. Oh. My. God.
I totally get that but with my own experience where I have so many cavities and so many root canals, I got over the pain and the drill and whatever. Because I firmly believe if you take care of your teeth, your teeth will take care of you. And I said this in multiple episodes including on episode 28, I plan to die with my teeth intact in my head. No dentures for this gal.
And now at the age of 78, he’s paying the price for it, for neglecting his teeth. And let me add something else here too. From his perspective, he believes that once you pull a tooth out, there’s no getting back another tooth. There’s no speaking right. There’s no eating right. There’s no enjoyment in eating anything anymore. And that sounds utterly illogical, asinine, but you couldn’t shake that thought from him even if you tried. And I tried multiple times.
So it’s always taken me literally – pun intended – pulling tooth and nail for him to go to the dentist. But ultimately the toothache was so bad he had no choice but to go.
So fast forward to today. We had just had two teeth pulled and he bled for five days. We pulled it on a Thursday or Friday and suffered through the weekend with it still bleeding. And it wasn’t until you know later on that we realized it was because of the blood thinners that he was taking daily. So lessons learned – don’t pull teeth until you actually stop taking blood thinners. You know, lessons learned. There you go.
But moving forward – what happens when you pull out two teeth? The next step would be to get to replacement teeth. Because nowadays with the miracles of technology and the wonderful world of science and dentistry, we have now the chance to get replacement teeth.
So obviously we have more options now in today’s age and society versus 20, 30 years ago, 40, 50 years ago, where if you had a toothache, you had to go ahead and have it pulled. Versus now when you pull it you can get a replacement tooth.
So since he had his tooth pulled by my particular doctor who was out of network from his insurance – Medicaid – I found an in-network dentist to get a partial denture. My method of finding a quote on quote good dentist as far as you can find them, with the help of the insurance company, is by Googling reviews on these people. If they get a four-star, four and a half-star, five-star, how they treat people, customer service, if they know what they’re doing, and they’re not going to pull out the wrong tooth. That’s a plus. And if they’re obviously in network with the insurance, and yes, Dr. Tony was.
So this would be our first time going to Dr Tony. So after waiting about two weeks for his gums to heal from the two extractions, we visited Dr Tony. I’m going to be transparent here and say that I was a little anxious, just a little bit anxious of going to see Dr Tony. We weren’t too sure about how the dentist was going to handle precautions and take care of us but we were masked up. We were in the car and I had called them as soon as we parked, asking them what we do next. Some people require you to stay outside until they call you inside because they don’t want anybody in the lobby or too many people in the office, which is perfectly understandable.
So from the car I had called up the office and they just said to come on up. So after we got there, we saw that everybody was messed up, gloved up. We were comfortable when we got there, we were pretty comfortable. So kudos to them for making the customers feel good going into the office, taking safety precautions, taken our temperature when we went inside, that they had used poly-glass like a bank teller in the front desk.
After a few minutes of filling out the paperwork, we were called back and Pop needed to get a full mouth X-ray. I was standing in the next room from the X-ray room while the lady was helping him. As I was standing in the room, waiting for them to finish up, I hear the lady call out the door to me, “Daughter…daughter.” And for a few seconds, I’m like, why is she saying daughter, until I realize I think she’s calling me. But she needed me in the room to talk to Pop to ask him to bite down harder because I guess one of their X-rays didn’t go through clearly enough.
And shortly after that, they released him. He was moved over to the room where we were waiting for the dentist to come, Dr. Tony to come. So when Dr. Tony made an appearance into the little room, he took one look at the X-ray and he was just like pointing out little vague areas on the x-rays – gone. Decay. Gone. Decay. Got to get out. Got to take out. Gone. Rotten.
And he was just pointing, pointing, pointing, giving his assessment as he pointed and basically Pop’s mouth was just full of shit, and everything needed to be pulled out, which was the ultimate fear of Pop’s – that he was going to have no teeth at the end of the day.
So as Dr Tony was saying, very surely, this needs to be pulled. This needs to be gone. This needs to be pulled. This needs to be gone. And he’s talking to us about this as he was saying this but he offered no real solutions as he was just picking off every single one of Pop’s teeth. Gone. Gone. Gone. Pull.
I just looked at him from behind my mask, and I’m wearing my cap, and I’m saying okay. So I asked, what’s your solution? And he just looks at me and says that’s what I see on the X-ray is basically his mouth, everything needs to go. And I’m looking at him/ I’m waiting for him to propose a solution. Pulling out his teeth, okay, that’s step one. I’m already at the end. What’s the resolution? I’m all about execution and resolution and moving forward. Dude hadn’t caught on yet. To me it just seemed like he was just taking his time getting to the resolution part and I was telling myself be patient, Sally in the Zen. Be patient, Grasshopper until I clearly said to him, again, what’s your solution?
So his solution was full dentures. Meaning, replace all his teeth with dentures. Top and bottom dentures. And that meant pulling out every single one of Pop’s teeth, and I can’t even tell you how many he has in his head, and then put implants. Implants that are not covered by insurance and then ultimately have removable dentures replace his teeth.
So for the bottom and the top of his mouth, he’s going to have full dentures. You know let me just say that this topic is pretty timely and pretty organic, meaning that I’m talking about this as we are in the process of getting his dentures all set up and squared away. And this is they’re just beginning part of that process. Because when we walked away, I had a list of to-do to do before we even nailed down an actual date of the procedure.
If you’re still hanging in there with me, let’s talk cost. The total cost is $15,000. And no, I’m not joking. Because Pop has Medical Assistance in the State of PA, the extractions (AKA pulling out the actual tooth one by one) and the actual dentures themselves are covered by Medical Assistance. Medical Assistance is basically Medicaid in the State of PA. Those two portions, that goodness we have insurance for. But the part that’s not covered is the implants. And the implants, from what I Googled, are not covered because they’re full cosmetic purposes and not deemed important enough to be covered by any insurance.
I don’t understand how something that’s holding dentures in your mouth can be a cosmetic purpose but it makes zero sense to me. And that portion is the reason why it’s $15,000
When I had to pay out of pocket for a couple of root canals last year at my own dentist, she had recommended Care Credit to me which I’m pretty thankful for. So I’ll be charging the $15,000 to the Care Credit card.
Care credit pays for medical expenses not covered by insurance. It’s a credit card that lets you pay off your balance interest free for a certain amount of time. But the cool thing about Care Credit is that it’s not solely for dental expenses. I’m looking at their website right now. It can be used for animal and pet care, your chiropractor, cosmetic expenses, dermatology, fitness expenses, lab and diagnostic, and hearing and pharmacy and personal care. And I just always used it for dental stuff. So if you have any kind of out-of-pocket health expenses that you need to pay off in the installments interest-free, Care Credit is pretty cool. And no, like I said in the beginning of this episode, I’m not affiliated with them. I’m just passing it forward for you guys to be better educated on your options, if you have no cash but you have credit.
Now the last part I wanted to talk about was actually the time frame of getting all of this done from soup to nuts. So it turns out that big chunk of time will be when the implants are implanted, and need time to heal. And the dentist has sent normally it’s an average of 4 months.
So when we go in there he’ll tackle the top part of his mouth first. Extract everything there. Put five implants. And then a few weeks of resting and healing, and then we go back and he tackles the bottom set of teeth and implant four implants there. We are going to have a resting period of 4 months so that the implants set, so that the bones cement, grow and stabilize his implants. And then work on getting his acrylic dentures. So, all in all, it should be 4 to 5 months, if you talk about soup to nuts.
So I think we’re going to be looking at possibly getting all of this done by March, April-sh, maybe. And definitely from the time all of his teeth are pulled out of his head to the time he gets his new set of dentures, you bet there’s going to be an episode or two that I’m going to have to share the trials and tribulations that Sally the Zen Buddhist caregiver is having with her cranky 78-year-old toothless Zen Master. Yes, yes, he is my muse. He is my perpetual muse.
Well, that takes us to the end of today’s episode. Hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions or comments, drop by my blog Sally in the Zen.com. Click on the Contact page and send me your thoughts and possibly depending on what it is, I may feature it on a future episode. We’ll see.
I hope that you and yours stay healthy, stay sane. And thank you, thank you, thank you for spending a few minutes of your time with me, talking about teeth, dentures and my Zen Master. Talk to you again next time.
