NATURE BALANCING THE ODDS

Life never goes in a straight, eventful line of good things and happy circumstances. The night I was called with the news that a very close friend had a heart attack and was in critical condition, I bit into a blackberry and found my mouth contained a floating tooth. A crowned tooth broke off at the root. I hasten to describe the blackberry as the soft kind that grows on a bush, not the hard kind that acts like a typewriter, phone, database, and all but cooks your breakfast.

My immediate first move, after picking out the rootless tooth, was to put my tongue into the space. There, between tooth #9 and tooth #11 (I think) was a replica of the grand canyon. Great shock and disappointment resulted when I realized there was not enough tooth left to have the crown reset. The cheek flesh that got sucked into the gap felt soft and fluffy, not like when my tongue roamed the rest of my cheek.

All that having been checked out, my next magnet was the mirror. Why does a missing tooth, next to a front tooth, instantly profile an identity out of Disney as the wicked stepmother traveling incognito. Back to the mirror, I practiced just how large a smile I could allow before the old hag appeared. Apparently not much. My greatest pleasure in life is a good belly laugh so I fantasied using a fan in front of my face but knew that wouldn't fly in the office.

Off to the dentist who was to pull the root out. His nurse held up a full set of x-rays and it looked like an archaeological find. He said he thought he should do the implant immediately after pulling the root, before the bone had time to crumble around the hole. He suggested, when he saw my shock, as I was thinking how long I would be sporting the Big Dig every time I opened my mouth, I should see my regular dentist to have a 'flipper' made. In six days I could get the next available appointment to have an impression taken, whereupon a new group whom they have not tried before will make up the flipper (hopefully not in New Delhi) but they could not tell me just exactly how long I would have to blow air through the channel between my teeth when I try to say anything with "Eff" or "Ess" in it.

My root extraction and implant will happen on September 4th as someone had canceled. I quietly wondered what would have happened if the root were giving me pain. However, respectfully unwilling to take a time away from someone who truly might have been suffering, other than vanity, I accepted the offer, made the appointment to be measured for the 'flipper', and went on my merry way happily escaping a sore jaw for another month, I hope.