All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth—and a laptop (the laptop will have to wait)

I thought I’d share this because of the song and the irony, as it’s almost Christmas.  Last Saturday I had just finished reading blogger Tom’s post on Sightings Over Sixty, The Tooth of the Matter when I turned off my tablet to go downstairs and get my mail. 

Instead of the elevator, I took my building’s iron stairwell but wasn’t wearing my glasses, and one floor down I decided to go back up and get my specs.  When I turned around and headed upstairs, I tripped and fell.  I banged my lower face against a step and heard an awful crack.

When I got back inside and looked in the mirror, my one front tooth (on the right in this photo) was broken off halfway and very jagged.

I took a photo and sent it to my sister Shawn (I don’t want to post it here, it looked pretty awful).  I knew my dentist’s office was closed until Tuesday, but messaged them anyway and sent the photo and what happened.  I sat here the rest of the evening in shock, afraid to eat or drink anything.

That wasn’t the worst of it—I went to bed, and a little after 2am woke up gagging.  Now my SECOND front tooth was broken and in a crumble in my mouth.  Apparently I’d fractured that one too.  What a mess.

I dug out my TMD guard (a bulky acrylic dental appliance that fits over your top teeth) and lived on coffee, ice cream & chicken soup for a couple days.  Tuesday morning my dentist’s office called and said to come in at 2 or sooner if possible.

Shortly after getting there and filling out a couple forms, I was led back for x-rays and told to sit tight.  15-20 minutes later, a thin 41 year old woman with heavy eyeglasses, long blonde ponytail and the thickest Southern accent this side of the Mason-Dixon line appeared in the doorway, hands on her hips.  “Young man!  WHAT DID YOU DO?!”  

It took everything in me not to burst out laughing, I love her dearly.  Doctor Shannon Passineau.

She studied the x-rays, examined my teeth then said “Douglas you have two options.  Both come with good news and bad news.”

“If we do crowns on those two teeth, we can have temporaries on them in no time at all.  And when your permanent crowns come in, they will probably last you a lifetime.  Since you don’t have insurance, they will cost you $1750 for the pair.”

I said ouch but they sounded good, and she said “But they will offset your bite just a fraction.  And it COULD be enough to trigger your TMD again.”   No. NO.

She said “Then I suggest Option #2.  Normally we don’t recommend fillings or composite rebuilds of teeth requiring more than 50% restoration.  And your two front teeth are over half gone.  But I AM a restoration specialist and I think I can do a nice job.  It will probably set you back around $400, and it will require a minimum of 2 hours on our parts.  Are you up for that?”

I said “Dr. Passineau, I will happily spend the night in this chair if necessary.”  She said “We don’t want you doing that!  My husband is taking me out tonight to dinner and a show at Heinz Hall and there is no way I’m missing that, my young man!”

After she numbed my mouth and began working, she said “You should see my new red dress Douglas, the one I’m wearing tonight.  Tell him, Amy.” 

Her assistant said it was red alright.  Doctor Passineau said “Yes it is RED and I look just fabulous in it.  Amy hand me that No. 4 please.  Now Douglas a Southern lady would never wear red unless she was some jezebel, but if it’s CHRISTMAS—“

Amy on the left, Dr. Passineau on the right

Dr. Passineau stopped and said “Young man, are you alright?  Did I numb you enough?”   I was clutching the armrests, doing everything I could not to laugh at “jezebel”. 

A couple hours later, she handed me a mirror and asked what I thought.  My jaw hurt like heck, but I was delighted.  I said “One of my front teeth was misshaped, and I always had a small gap between them.”   She said “Oh, I went ahead and fixed all that!”   As you can see in the photo above, she sure did. 

My total for these repairs was $345.00.  Dr. Passineau told me she still needs to do filler on the left one, and repairs on two at the bottom.  According to the printout below, those bottoms will set me back another $335.00 in 2 weeks.

She told me all 4 of these teeth were structurally unsound and were ready to go anyway.  (I knew one of the front teeth was fragile, but not the other ones.)  

Anyway, with my recent gallbladder issue in November that cost me $550.00 after insurance ($150 for the ambulance, $75 for the ER and $325 for the abdominal ultrasound) and now this, there goes the money I had allocated for a new laptop, and then some. 

I’m typing this on a laptop from 2012 that still uses Windows 7;  I heard Windows is up to version 11 now!

Oh well, I’d prefer a healthy gall bladder & my front teeth anyway