The Twenty-Five Year Filling

I went to see my dentist today.  There was a crown he had made for me a few months ago he wasn't happy with.   He wanted to remake the crown.   I was fine with remaking the crown, but I wasn't looking forward to the temporary coming off again and again for three weeks while we waited for the permanent crown due to the shallowness of the tooth.  

This time though, he had a plan that worked out well.   He did some things on his end he could control while I was still in the office and he sent me home with some of his dentist tools and several packets of temporary cement in case the temporary fell out.   His plan worked, though, and I happily returned his bag of dentistry item, unused, today when he placed the permanent crown.

We had been talking about one other thing he could do too, and today he did it.   I chipped one of my lower front teeth some over twenty-five years ago.   At the time, my dentist told me anything he did would just break or fall out because the chip was small and in a highly-used location.   Short of putting a veneer on the tooth—something I didn't want for an aesthetic chip—I was stuck with the look.

When I mentioned it to my neighbor recently, he looked at the chip (which turned out to be two small chips on side-by-side teeth) and told me it was something he could fix easily, but that it may not stay forever.   He said he wouldn't even have to drill into the tooth, he would just chemically etch the edges.  With dental work, nothing is forever.  I told him and to sign me up.

This morning he placed the crown and then took about twenty minutes to put two small fillings on top of the existing tooth.   It's something little.  It's something most likely only I will truly notice, but it's something that made my overall smile uneven.

I told him I was so happy about those little fillings (he refused to charge me for them) and that I'd been waiting twenty-five years to have level bottom front teeth.     I have been looking in the mirror and smiling all day.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son asked my husband today, "daddy, why do you hate cheese?"   I burst out laughing, because my husband doesn't like most cheese.   How was he going to answer this one?   He explained that he didn't "hate" cheese and then went on to say some other things I didn't pay attention to because I was still laughing at my son's question.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter said to my son in the car today, "Greyson, did you know that people are creatures?"

Fitness Update:  I went to the fitness room and did some elliptical today.  It wasn't as boring as I had expected it to be because Uncle Jonathan went with me and we talked the whole time.