This week, my lower left jaw pain has acted up. When I went to the dentist three months ago, he said I’m getting old. Well not in so many words, seeing how I look younger than him like much younger. What he meant was the gums on my lower left jaw are pulling away from the teeth, exposing the nerves and causing pain… something that happens in older folks.  Unless you have dentures. Then there aint nothing to do but get more denture glue.

My options are: leave it alone and pray for a cure, or get them all pulled and leave me half toothless. Or pay out the wazoo and cover the cost of his Mercedes Benz outside.

Well now….. fending off his billing manager I decided to wait.

So, I was told that since the issues are a capped tooth anchored to a bridge, that means 2 new caps and a new bridge since you can’t re-use the same bridge or the 2 old caps.  For real? I paid $2000 for the bridge  3 years ago, can’t I get a trade-in like a new cell phone? And get a cost break? Sorry, no can do, he says.  That will be around 3K  with insurance. Thank you very much. “But there is free coffee in the waiting room.” Whoopee. It’s not even Starbucks. How about free teeth whitening then, doc?  He suddenly became deaf as he walked out of the exam room, mumbling about eggs being $9 a dozen…

Wtf , so much for dental insurance. Maybe driving across the border to Mexico isn’t such a bad idea now.

So I put it off, thinking, “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.” So I flossed and water-brushed it every day. And the pain went away. But now it’s back, and the pain is worse. So I’m due for my cleaning this week. I might as well go in and see his smiling face and his eager-beaver office manager behind him asking for a deposit and my credit card.

Damn it.

The only reason I’m considering diving into debt on this is two things:

I don’t want my teeth pulled as being toothless doesn’t suit me.

And I don’t want an infection to interfere with my pending foot surgery. If you have a dental infection, then it can invade the blood, go to your heart, and kill you.

Not in the cards for me.

So, I’ll see the dentist and his hungry office billing manager on Friday. Thank goodness I have a high credit limit on my credit card.

In the meantime, I’m practicing how not to fall and looking at what credit cards have zero interest.

I am having extensive foot and toe surgery in 3 weeks. It will involve things like cutting, moving, fusing bones, and screwing things in place. Not good. It will end in a cast and instructions to be non-weight bearing for 4-6 weeks.

Im alone and live on a 2^nd floor apartment with a non-working elevator and neighbors who won’t come out to help you unless you yell fire. So, I need to not fall under any circumstances.

Who f**ing idea was this?

So I bought:

Arm crutches. A shower chair, a reacher thing, and an I-WALK.

What’s that? A peg leg device you strap your bent leg into to walk on without crutches.  However, it’s a bit scary; if you fall, your leg is still bent and strapped in, so you could go down and break another body part like a hip or an arm or your skull since your leg can’t do anything strapped in.

So I’m practicing on it. I’m using a one-arm crutch cane to help. The video shows people just jaunting around on it, arms free, doing dishes, and acting like it’s no big deal. I think I can do that, too. Said self when drinking and ordering it on Amazon.

However, on the instruction videos, they left out really important things like how to sit on the toilet with your leg strapped in or how to pick up your underwear on the floor.

The thing doesn’t bend like your other leg. So, if you sit you must go down like a one-legged squat and fall on the toilet. Well, I practiced, and yup, I nearly fell off the toilet with the peg leg in the air. There ought to be a breakaway strap on it like the lanyard I wear on my neck for my badge. In an emergency, it separates so you don’t hang yourself. Im gonna send this suggestion to the manufacturer in the event of a fall. The 3 straps break free so you don’t break the hip and your leg too. Otherwise, I’ll need to drink to stay numb in the event of a fall.

Somewhere in Texas.

Balancing on a peg leg with a glass of wine on it.

umm whose F*** idea was this again?

More to follow…