DENTISTS I HAVE KNOWN--Chapter 2
This year I had to get new dentures and a new partial due to wear and tear of advanced age and global warming. The exam by my regular dentist and referral to the periodontists dentist cost me $235, and left me with a choice to have a lose tooth reinforced by bone grafting from a cadaver donor and a new cap for a cost of several thousand dollars for one tooth, OR pull the tooth.
Christmas 1975 we went to Florida to visit my Mom and Dad in Venice, Florida. We planned to take all five kids to Disneyland on the way home. My cousin Bobby invited us to stay with them for a few days in their home in Orlando. Bobbie was a jewel and husband Don was more like a lump of sandstone. A real jerk but was good to Bobbie and that was all that counted. She had discount admission tickets and would take us to the park. We visited them shortly after Don had returned from Bedford, Virginia, to have his teeth pulled and new dentures made in one day from a denture factory. The trip from Orlando to Bedford and return saved him thousands of dollars. Don was in great pain and miserable. When Don was miserable, all around him were miserable.
I needed to find that factory. They had advertised on Channel 10 in Roanoke with a 1-800-Denture number. My honey called and they sent a brochure with the local “Affordable Dentures” address and phone number. http://www.affordabledentures.com/
The drill (pun intended) for while-you-wait dentures is first come first serve. Get there at 7 AM and eat a steak with new teeth at night. They have three quality choices and prices for full set of dentures: $375, Economy (one day); $615 Custom, (two day); and $890, Premium (two days). They make impressions at 7 AM and make dentures in the morning, pull your teeth, (at $65 per tooth) in the afternoon, install the dentures over your bloody gums, and send you off to eat dinner.
Bedford, Virginia, is 20 miles from our home and is the new home of The National D Day Memorial, and Affordable Dentures (another National Monument). I made an appointment for an exam.
The building is on VA Route 460 next to a Virginia State Police barracks. It’s a real rundown dump of a building, much like a WW1 temporary Army medical unit. BUT the two dentists are female as are the technicians, so the heat was up in the comfort zone. Not like the cold I find in male dentists offices. The waiting room had lots of folding chairs organized in theater arrangement. Every one filled with toothless men and women. We only waited an hour for my name to be called.
They had six dental chairs in the impression area, and four dental chairs in the extraction area, separated by barroom doors. I removed my old teeth and put them on a paper towel. The technician brought all kind of paperwork to be filled out and checked for tooth color preference. That’s when I asked for My Honey to make the choice. She decided on color and quality for our home, yard, and me. She picked the best quality. One of the dentists arrived at my mouth to see which tooth needed pulling. She wiggled it and ordered impressions. They took impressions and made another appointment at 11:30AM, two days later to approve wax mockup of my teeth. We paid in full on the way out the door.
At the next appointment they had my full uppers and the lower partial dentures in a wax mockup for me to try. Couldn’t try the lower due to still having the un-pulled lose tooth. They looked fine. Two days later I had the tooth pulled and my new dentures installed in time for lunch.
I had to go back this week for a few pressure areas to be ground down. I arriver about 10 AM and waited my turn. During the long wait, we were entertained by an irate gentleman (word used loosely) not satisfied with how they repaired a lose tooth on his bridge. He kept getting louder and louder in the waiting room. The receptionist tried to help him, but he just wanted all to know how dishonest the place was and shoddy they did the repair. She offered to redo the tooth or give him his money back. He went through the audience giving out his phone number offering to go on a class action law suit with anyone interested in suing this @X#^&* place. The office manager and receptionist decided to refund his money with an apology. He just wanted to rave on and on. He got his money back as two Virginia State Troopers walked in the front door. He started in on them when one took him by the arm and hustled him outside. The other filled out paper work. The second officer returned, and almost immediately the man returned. Only to be put outside with force.
When my turn came to go into the impression, six-chair room, I thanked the dentist and several technicians present for providing such a good entertaining show in the waiting room earlier and asked if they had another show planned for the afternoon?
No, they didn’t have planned shows in the future either. I did get smiles and winks.
Have you ever noticed when your mouth is numbed to the point your whole face seems like someone else when you touch it, that you are asked by the dentist, “How does that feel?” or “Is that a good bite?” How would you know?
And then you go to lunch and eat half of your numbed lip and tongue with your ham sandwich, and you leak your ice tea down your chin on your shirt.
Christmas 1975 we went to Florida to visit my Mom and Dad in Venice, Florida. We planned to take all five kids to Disneyland on the way home. My cousin Bobby invited us to stay with them for a few days in their home in Orlando. Bobbie was a jewel and husband Don was more like a lump of sandstone. A real jerk but was good to Bobbie and that was all that counted. She had discount admission tickets and would take us to the park. We visited them shortly after Don had returned from Bedford, Virginia, to have his teeth pulled and new dentures made in one day from a denture factory. The trip from Orlando to Bedford and return saved him thousands of dollars. Don was in great pain and miserable. When Don was miserable, all around him were miserable.
I needed to find that factory. They had advertised on Channel 10 in Roanoke with a 1-800-Denture number. My honey called and they sent a brochure with the local “Affordable Dentures” address and phone number. http://www.affordabledentures.com/
The drill (pun intended) for while-you-wait dentures is first come first serve. Get there at 7 AM and eat a steak with new teeth at night. They have three quality choices and prices for full set of dentures: $375, Economy (one day); $615 Custom, (two day); and $890, Premium (two days). They make impressions at 7 AM and make dentures in the morning, pull your teeth, (at $65 per tooth) in the afternoon, install the dentures over your bloody gums, and send you off to eat dinner.
Bedford, Virginia, is 20 miles from our home and is the new home of The National D Day Memorial, and Affordable Dentures (another National Monument). I made an appointment for an exam.
The building is on VA Route 460 next to a Virginia State Police barracks. It’s a real rundown dump of a building, much like a WW1 temporary Army medical unit. BUT the two dentists are female as are the technicians, so the heat was up in the comfort zone. Not like the cold I find in male dentists offices. The waiting room had lots of folding chairs organized in theater arrangement. Every one filled with toothless men and women. We only waited an hour for my name to be called.
They had six dental chairs in the impression area, and four dental chairs in the extraction area, separated by barroom doors. I removed my old teeth and put them on a paper towel. The technician brought all kind of paperwork to be filled out and checked for tooth color preference. That’s when I asked for My Honey to make the choice. She decided on color and quality for our home, yard, and me. She picked the best quality. One of the dentists arrived at my mouth to see which tooth needed pulling. She wiggled it and ordered impressions. They took impressions and made another appointment at 11:30AM, two days later to approve wax mockup of my teeth. We paid in full on the way out the door.
At the next appointment they had my full uppers and the lower partial dentures in a wax mockup for me to try. Couldn’t try the lower due to still having the un-pulled lose tooth. They looked fine. Two days later I had the tooth pulled and my new dentures installed in time for lunch.
I had to go back this week for a few pressure areas to be ground down. I arriver about 10 AM and waited my turn. During the long wait, we were entertained by an irate gentleman (word used loosely) not satisfied with how they repaired a lose tooth on his bridge. He kept getting louder and louder in the waiting room. The receptionist tried to help him, but he just wanted all to know how dishonest the place was and shoddy they did the repair. She offered to redo the tooth or give him his money back. He went through the audience giving out his phone number offering to go on a class action law suit with anyone interested in suing this @X#^&* place. The office manager and receptionist decided to refund his money with an apology. He just wanted to rave on and on. He got his money back as two Virginia State Troopers walked in the front door. He started in on them when one took him by the arm and hustled him outside. The other filled out paper work. The second officer returned, and almost immediately the man returned. Only to be put outside with force.
When my turn came to go into the impression, six-chair room, I thanked the dentist and several technicians present for providing such a good entertaining show in the waiting room earlier and asked if they had another show planned for the afternoon?
No, they didn’t have planned shows in the future either. I did get smiles and winks.
Have you ever noticed when your mouth is numbed to the point your whole face seems like someone else when you touch it, that you are asked by the dentist, “How does that feel?” or “Is that a good bite?” How would you know?
And then you go to lunch and eat half of your numbed lip and tongue with your ham sandwich, and you leak your ice tea down your chin on your shirt.
posted by JackSML | 9:28 PM
1 Comments:
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