It’s Always Something

(Written much earlier.  When I tried to post they were doing server work that affected BB, so I had to hold it for later.)

I just love the confluence of awkward cashflow and things coming up that need the cash I’ll have in a week or two. Or three.

We have the opportunity to buy a minivan for $500 that runs well, has high yet gentle mileage, has an almost perfect body and a nice, clean looking engine, and is known to need certain work soon that even if it runs several hundred bucks would be worth it.

Amazingly, as of 36 hours ago, it was not gone yet, even though I’ve already waited nine days and counting to get paid uncharacteristically late and then let it take two business days to clear and be officially available, since it’s all electronic now and can be cleared almost instantly so we still have old-fashioned “gotcha” waits.

I can just eke out enough to buy the car and probably get by for groceries and sundries, if the new, much larger month I billed Thursday is paid within the net 15. Mind you, not only do they almost never exceed that, but also they usually pay within a week. So I plan to call the bank on their “two business days for local checks” thing today, despite knowing that they once overdrafted me on the third or fourth business day. Which was what led me to ask them exactly, eventually. And for what it’s worth, it was as Bank of America they said two days to my face, and as Fleet that they did the three or four day thing. We all know Fleet was the height of evil and Bank of America is just the best.

So in the midst of this, yesterday I broke a tooth.

Doh!

It’s not even especially painfully, though I have felt sort of nauseated or like I’m coming down with something ever since, and it’s ever so slightly temperature sensitive.

I wasn’t even aware I had one in sufficiently bad condition to do that. But there it is. Next to last, upper right molar, with a gaping, jagged hole about 1/3 of the tooth in size, facing the back and scraping my tongue raw. It was Deb I was worried about sending to a dentist soon, not me.

We were going to look for a dentist more local than my old one, who is in Duxbury, and try to find one who would be especially gentle with Deb. I could go to mine. I’ve basically blown off going for a few years, I think since 2001 but I could be remembering wrong, since I stopped being able to afford it, after I no longer had dental insurance to make it less unaffordable. That and I’d had all the major work caught up. My first year back to the dentist I had five root canals. Later I had more. And lots of crowns. In fact, it was the $2500 to buy the previous van that decided eliminated my plan to replace a pulled molar with an implant. Glad of it, too, because I don’t miss the particular tooth at all. However, the one that broke is the focal point of most of my chewing, which is overwhelmingly right-sided. But I digress. Heck, that tooth is the one that forced me onto the blood pressure treatment train and landed me with my current doctor. And they still had to give me a valium to make the BP low enough to pull the tooth. I am not sure how extracting this one would work, even if it would be the low cost solution.

What I really want is to be able to go in and say “look at this tooth… no, this one, ignore the rest, what can you do about it and what will it cost?” You go to a dentist and they want to do the cleaning and then the checkup and then make a list of all the teeth that could use any attention and line you up for a series of appointments to work on every last one.

I feel bad going to my old dentist after blowing her off once we got down to semi-annual checkups plus anything those might lead to. She’s definitely of the above school. One time in 1993 I had a totally rotted rear molar that just needed to come out. I was able to go down the street in Billerica, where I worked, see a guy who looked at it said “yup, it’s rotted” and pulled it for a grand total of $50. That was great! But I’d like a little more thought to go into this one, because it’s not clear to me it’s that gone. Though the extent of the damage implies needing a crown, and those were running I think $500-600 each when last I got a few.

Anyway, work calls! I’m late anyway, and now there’s a near-emergency incident waiting for my attention.

1. I’m kind of glad that I’m not the only one in need of serious dentistry. I have insurance but it only covers $1000 a year and like you touched on the dentist don’t want to just fix what needs to be fixed right now. First a deep cleaning that will in 4 visits basicly wipe my $1000 for the year and cost me $30 per visit. Then on top of that $4500 more when I went to a dentist over a year ago to have one of my 2 broken teeth looked at. My last and second to last left rear teeth are broken. They don’t hurt that goodness but I’m really carefull of them while eating. With work slow and before the end of the year I’m going to try to find a dentist who will do something about the emidiate problems and hopefully work withing my budget. Maybe with the $1000 for this year and the $1000 right after the first of the year I can get things at least under control. the funny thing is my insurance will pay in full for dentures. I could be tempted to go that route just to save the money.

   Posted by wayne  on  12/05  at  02:40 PM  from  Ohio
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