Lucky to have teeth? 16 11 4 (8) 25 1 27

When I awoke this morning it was from a dream in which I finally retired aged 77 and from one of the two companies I was employed by during the second half of my business life beginning when I was 35 years old: but somewhat reluctantly and no longer sure in which country I should settle down in, almost as if my blog of yesterday had triggered the dream..?

But this is not the sequel I may have had in mind rather it has more to do with a conversation I had with my dentist's assistant E whilst prostrate in the former’s chair awaiting her ladyship my dentist G for the past 22 years. The conversation began with my confiding that if I was to have the odd tooth filled then I should very much like to have the gum injected with an anaesthetic. The words are difficult for me in the language of my adoptive country because they do not translate quite literally from my native English, when for example in the part of Britain I grew up in we used to talk about having the gum frozen rather than its being anesthetized... Then she enquired whether I was taking this medication or that medication skirting round the question of whether I was taking anything like marevan or warfarin which might interfere with their chosen anaesthetic?

In reply I told her I was taking all manner of medicines for a variety of conditions but that although I carried "Nitro" short for trinitroglycerin tablets since my heart attack 12 years ago I have never had cause to use it to avoid a recurrence... I mentioned Thyroxine for my under-active thyroid gland, the small 5mg dose of a Statin to keep my cholesterol levels in check (which they are despite this otherwise unheard of small dosage), and then a medicine for Type 2 diabetes which I have been taking for a few years already... Then she responded that she had recently been told she was born with a serious heart condition which had implications for having normal pregnancies but which happily in her middle age were all successfully behind her without any difficulties so that we were able to concur how fortunate we are living in a Golden Age when medical and surgical solutions have never been more widespread or so highly developed, at least in the Western World...

Now talk of teeth and their associated problems is usually a no no in my circle of friends and family because no-one I know has the problems I have had to endure during the second half of my life as this Golden Age unfolded, but exceptionally sitting in my dentist’s chair is the one place in the world where I know I can hold forth, be understood and get a sympathetic ear..?    

When I mentioned some of the problems engendered by the prostheses she has overseen in collaboration her Technician she gave by way of example a very famous football coach who had dentures and who whenever he a problem with a piece of food getting lodged beneath one or other of them, he simply took them out of his mouth, no matter was he sitting round a dining table with his colleagues at a special dinner or wherever, and proceeded to clean them before reinserting them into his mouth… unbelievable!

I am fortunate to live in a family where my older brother and elder son have perfect teeth, my brother only ever had trouble with a single wisdom tooth, whilst my wife and younger sister have had occasion to sit in a dentist’s chair from time to time and, fortunately for me, my wife has had recourse to having some implants made because her so-called bite wasn’t as good as it should be, so that she is on the whole sympathetic to my problems. But my father had dentures already in his 30s which I have earlier ascribed to Navy dentists preferring to extract rather than use the later custom of filling imperfections in teeth, whilst his only sister died age 50 in her heart attack, as did her 3rd son at 60, and her first son, a fellow septuagenarian had his bypass surgery around the same time as I did and he too suffered much in terms of similar dental problems…

That problems in the mouth are linked to problems in the heart are well documented today which allows people like me to go on smiling with a smile akin to the perfect one I had in my youth, and more importantly perhaps with a quality of life unheard of only a generation ago..? Have a good day everyone as I hope you too have a perfect smile albeit for whatever reason..? hahaha   

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