use string and schedule

PG climbed onto her little soap box to read a few words I wrote:

I try not to write about deeply personal matters here. I have enough digital leakage in my life it’s probably fairly easy to piece together a more complete view of my day than I intentionally record. However, if you had the misfortune to chance upon a conversation with me recently, I’ve mentioned something I’m dealing with. I figure I might as well write about it here since I talk about it so much.

Since mid-January I’ve been a frequent visitor to the dentist. This frequent visitor program was avoidable, had I taken action twenty years ago.

I lost count of the fillings I’ve had to-date and are scheduled in the coming weeks. There are three visits that I won’t soon forget, as because they changed my interactions with food– at least on a temporary basis, as with why they occurred.

See, with the terrible title, you knew I would shoehorn this post into today’s topic, right?

(groan)

Memorable visit the first was a root canal (my second) on a tooth that has enjoyed a fair amount of work over the years. This was pain-free (I ♥ my dentist) but did rule out crunchy foods until the post went in weeks later.

Memorable visit the second reminded me to always eat properly before visits. A bag of pretzels (Ener-G Foods Pretzels [warning that’s an amazon affiliate link]) and coffee do not a filling lunch make. This visit was on a Monday of Mondays and resulted in a wisdom tooth being wiggled out. I was pain free (ice! ice! ice!) as early as the next day, but as I healed there was that completely unanticipated liquid diet. Yes, I knew that tooth was scheduled to be yanked, it had cavities that were quite difficult to fill, but I hadn’t expected it that day.

Memorable visit the third was scheduled and planned and I ate a huge meal before I went in. Oral surgery removed a bottom molar that had a 10 year old root canal gone bad. I was relatively pain free (ice! ice! ice!) quickly and am healing beautifully to the delight of my dentist. While this necessitated a similar liquid diet, I discovered a surprise when I returned to the land of semi-solids. Foods I thought were soft are instead quite pointy and painful when they end up in a slowly-healing hole in one’s mouth. Rice is a prime example. I made congee (rice porridge) and if I wasn’t careful I had a painful surprise. As I healed my tolerance for poking increased but I was surprised to find what foods would cause me to sit up straighter and my eyes to water.

Yesterday afternoon I finally received a temporary spacer. I hadn’t realized until dinner how much I favored the other side of my mouth while eating. What a difference! I expect that in time I will begin to enjoy foods I’ve stayed away from. Ok, I admit I will go back on my popcorn diet. Yay!

The point of this rambling post is that these time-intensive and costly appointments were preventable. While ice cream for breakfast is a nice treat, it looses the fun factor by the third day…

Please floss daily and make regular dentist appointments.

• Category: food