Smile!

I went to the dentist today.  I have been going to the same dentist for over 40 years.  Well, actually, in the 40+ years, I have been treated by a father, son and grandson.  All, happily, quite capable.  Today's visit was just for a teeth cleaning.  I got a clean bill of health except for a tiny (their words) rough patch on the edge of a crown that needs to be smoothed out.  I heard the dentist say to the nurse as he was leaving the room "There will be no shot necessary."  I think that sounded like good news.  I will be going back in two weeks for that treatment.

I want to say here that I do take good care of my teeth.  I brush, I floss, I use a water pic.  In fact the dentist said that I was "doing excellent home care."  That was nice to hear.  

But still, with all the praise, the hygienist spent almost an hour picking and scraping.  It felt like she was trying to hoe a garden.  It turned out, based on her conversation as she worked on me, that she actually is an avid gardener.  I think she's anxious to be gardening for real.  After all the picking, flossing, scraping and polishing, she did something new.  She used a computer system to measure how much my gums have receded.  She ran a little probe around the inside and outside of every tooth, rattled off into a small mic what seemed like a hundred three digit numbers, and, when she was finally finished, proudly showed me the wonderful chart she and the computer had created.  It was colorful and impressive looking and totally meaningless to me, but she seemed quite pleased.  I don't believe my teeth are going to fall out tomorrow, so I shall not worry about the high tech stuff.  I will just be thankful that the whole experience was totally painless. and I got a brand new pink tooth brush.