Emergencies arise even during emergencies!
Last Wednesday my husband's (upper) denture broke in half. He still had a tooth in the front that was his, but had been trying to leave him and apparently, as he puts it, “it acted like a wedge as it moved and split the entire denture in half”.
This would be a problem in the best of times, but right now – when the thought of going to the supermarket sends fear through us – the thought of going to the dentist to have it replaced sends worse fears through us – someone touching his mouth during the pandemic…
To top it off we no longer have a dentist. Our long term dentist (he was my dentist before we started dating in the 1970s) retired in 2018. We are not the best at dental health as most of our actual teeth are gone and fake ones replace them and therefore do not have a new dentist. Last December husband lost another tooth in the front of his mouth. We needed to have it replaced quickly as we were doing a craft demonstration the coming weekend and he would not look like someone that one wanted to buy a higher end woven item from if he was missing a tooth . For information about that see - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/12/real-estate-tax-exemption-paperwork-and.html
Not only the general fear of going to the dentist, and the fear of doing so during the epidemic, but also financial fears faced us. While we knew we could charge the work, we only have the money that is in or will be in our checking account when the credit card bill comes in to pay our bills. In normal times in an emergency we could go and make a withdrawal from husbands small IRA, but that would be another trip out in the world of Covid- 19 and we don't want to go out more than we absolutely have to. Also we had not met the dentist last time – only his staff – staff and did not know if would be understanding or not.
I telephoned the dentist's office and explained. We were given an appointment on Saturday morning (and not too early for us to deal with) as the tech who makes the dentures would be in that day. Husband worried about surviving until then both in terms of eating and being nervous. He has an older denture and used that for the week. (I had offered to cook only soft food if he needed.) I was told that he had to come in alone. As I was discussing this with the employee and that it was a problem, he said he understood and could go in alone. We were texted forms to fill in – basically Covid-19 disclaimers in case husband came down with it.
Friday night neither of us really slept at all in fear of the appointment to come. We drove there Saturday morning and I telephoned the office. An employee came out and took his temperature. They told him to wait and then a brief time later she came back and took him in with her. I sat in the car and played card games on my cell phone. He telephoned me to discuss the options he had been given – fix this denture or buy a new one. We went with “fix this one” for now – if nothing else when he did get a new one, he would have a more complete spare for emergencies.
He was done and out a short time later and we drove home – and I went to back to bed hoping to still get some sleep – that was not to be. Now in 2 weeks we will know that we are okay.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK – Often when we are afraid the fear is much more than the situation calls for. We know this, but it does not stop us from being overly afraid of things and we tend to over think and overplan them. (By we I mean my husband and I.) I find that in the end generally it all works out – in this case as we hoped, other times it works out in ways we had not hoped for or had not thought of, but everything always works out someway and somehow in the end.
A very good and safe fourth of July to all – even if you are not here in the U.S.
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