Hyperventilation Cessation
Feb. 2nd, 2006 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
All right, I've had a (sorta) good night's sleep and time to think about it, so here goes...
Yesterday I went to see Dr. Beavers, mainly because I could feel two cavities pretty much growing in the upper left molars and I wanted to do something about them before they got worse. I'd rather not have a crater with enamel around it, or worse a crumbling spot of decay back there. Best to get it taken care of before it gets that bad. So I scheduled a check-up (which alone cost $100, but that's another spaz) to see what needed to be done so I could plan from there. From my admittedly ignorant estimate, I thought I was looking at maybe 5 fillings at worst, and in the nightmare scenario 4 fillings and a possible root canal.
Dr. Beavers' office has the friendliest most awesome staff in the history of the dental profession. That, and there's a pretty solid beaver obsession, which makes him OK in my book. I suppose his wife is head nurse there, and she spent the most amount of time in my mouth; her diagnosis was all over the place, from good to worrying. She (again) stressed the need to floss, told me my teeth were excellent and strong and I wasn't prone to decay (but gum disease is always a problem IF YOU DON'T FLOSS SO DO IT DAMNIT). She even said that what I thought were cavities might have just been an exceptionally rough enamel surface, which wasn't unheard of. So by the time the dentist came in, I was feeling fairly reassured that this wasn't going to be such a big deal.
Dr. Beavers came in, rattled off a lot of letters and numbers, and left. His wife came in and said that there were cavities between almost every molar, 15 in all, and while they were small they needed to be taken care of. Because they were between the teeth fillings would be a lot more involved, and that would drive the price up a bit (she wasn't kidding).
All in all, the estimate (minus the crown, mind you) is $2400. She said it might be less, especially if they could get away with just polishing the decay out of a few of the smaller ones. All of the dental work, including the crown, should be roughly $3000...in a worst-case scenario that doesn't suddenly go nightmarish (unexpected root canal, or worse).
Needless to say, that was a suckerpunch I wasn't looking for, and most of yesterday was spent wallowing in depression, pity and self-loathing.
What's particularly frustrating about this situation is that I shouldn't really be surprised. A visit to the dentist about a year ago for my wisdom teeth pretty much yielded the same warning. You have very strong good teeth that will treat you well, but the enamel's wearing thin between quite a few of them and you should get into the habit of flossing now. All I heard was 'good teeth' though so I celebrated by going on a cookie and sweet tea binger for the next eight months. :P
So now I'm in this fairly large predicament. The game plan is to get the most pressing work done immediately, start flossing and use the fluoride rinse they sold diligently. This should make things workable enough for the time being. Once I'm out in CA and have a job with some kind of dental plan, I can get the remaining work done. Hopefully.
I did my taxes last night; between federal and state returns I should get about $700 back, which will help enormously. Also, I discovered that I made over $17,000 last year, taking about $14k of that home. While this might be peanuts to you fancy Californy peoples, this is the most I've ever made in life in a single year and isn't really a bad living at all.
There's no excuse why I shouldn't have money saved. Yes, there's Mom and ongoing dental crises and the car I bought at the beginning of last year was a fairly big money sink, but...doing a bit of rough figuring, that's still about $4 or 5 thousand in disposable income. And it all went to eating or putting pretty braids in my hair.
So, one of the good things about this whole situation is it teaches me the lesson of responsibility in a fairly backhand-slap way. I've budgeted for the next three months and if I take out the tax return and about $250 in emergency/irresponsibility funds, I should *still* be able to save roughly $1400 by the end of April.
Long story short, I'll be OK. The dentistry stuff hurts, but it would have hurt a whole lot less had I been more careful with money. This leads to another deep-seated shame about having had to borrow from other folks before now. There's no reason I should have, because I certainly make enough to take care of myself.
Thank you all so much for the outpouring of support and offers to help. The situation, at second glance, is a lot more workable than I thought; if something changes drastically (let's keep our fingers crossed) then I'll have to revisit everything. But really, I'll be all right. There's a possibility there's some government program out there that could help, there's also the idea of having the work done at a dental school, or getting a second opinion and seeing what possible alternatives are. Now that I've calmed down, I can figure this out.
In other news, I should be getting a car by the end of the month, and at least a learner's permit. NaPoeWriMo 2006 is over and done with, but I still have the desire to write poetry. And Grey Warming Over is now my top writing priority.
But first, work.
Yesterday I went to see Dr. Beavers, mainly because I could feel two cavities pretty much growing in the upper left molars and I wanted to do something about them before they got worse. I'd rather not have a crater with enamel around it, or worse a crumbling spot of decay back there. Best to get it taken care of before it gets that bad. So I scheduled a check-up (which alone cost $100, but that's another spaz) to see what needed to be done so I could plan from there. From my admittedly ignorant estimate, I thought I was looking at maybe 5 fillings at worst, and in the nightmare scenario 4 fillings and a possible root canal.
Dr. Beavers' office has the friendliest most awesome staff in the history of the dental profession. That, and there's a pretty solid beaver obsession, which makes him OK in my book. I suppose his wife is head nurse there, and she spent the most amount of time in my mouth; her diagnosis was all over the place, from good to worrying. She (again) stressed the need to floss, told me my teeth were excellent and strong and I wasn't prone to decay (but gum disease is always a problem IF YOU DON'T FLOSS SO DO IT DAMNIT). She even said that what I thought were cavities might have just been an exceptionally rough enamel surface, which wasn't unheard of. So by the time the dentist came in, I was feeling fairly reassured that this wasn't going to be such a big deal.
Dr. Beavers came in, rattled off a lot of letters and numbers, and left. His wife came in and said that there were cavities between almost every molar, 15 in all, and while they were small they needed to be taken care of. Because they were between the teeth fillings would be a lot more involved, and that would drive the price up a bit (she wasn't kidding).
All in all, the estimate (minus the crown, mind you) is $2400. She said it might be less, especially if they could get away with just polishing the decay out of a few of the smaller ones. All of the dental work, including the crown, should be roughly $3000...in a worst-case scenario that doesn't suddenly go nightmarish (unexpected root canal, or worse).
Needless to say, that was a suckerpunch I wasn't looking for, and most of yesterday was spent wallowing in depression, pity and self-loathing.
What's particularly frustrating about this situation is that I shouldn't really be surprised. A visit to the dentist about a year ago for my wisdom teeth pretty much yielded the same warning. You have very strong good teeth that will treat you well, but the enamel's wearing thin between quite a few of them and you should get into the habit of flossing now. All I heard was 'good teeth' though so I celebrated by going on a cookie and sweet tea binger for the next eight months. :P
So now I'm in this fairly large predicament. The game plan is to get the most pressing work done immediately, start flossing and use the fluoride rinse they sold diligently. This should make things workable enough for the time being. Once I'm out in CA and have a job with some kind of dental plan, I can get the remaining work done. Hopefully.
I did my taxes last night; between federal and state returns I should get about $700 back, which will help enormously. Also, I discovered that I made over $17,000 last year, taking about $14k of that home. While this might be peanuts to you fancy Californy peoples, this is the most I've ever made in life in a single year and isn't really a bad living at all.
There's no excuse why I shouldn't have money saved. Yes, there's Mom and ongoing dental crises and the car I bought at the beginning of last year was a fairly big money sink, but...doing a bit of rough figuring, that's still about $4 or 5 thousand in disposable income. And it all went to eating or putting pretty braids in my hair.
So, one of the good things about this whole situation is it teaches me the lesson of responsibility in a fairly backhand-slap way. I've budgeted for the next three months and if I take out the tax return and about $250 in emergency/irresponsibility funds, I should *still* be able to save roughly $1400 by the end of April.
Long story short, I'll be OK. The dentistry stuff hurts, but it would have hurt a whole lot less had I been more careful with money. This leads to another deep-seated shame about having had to borrow from other folks before now. There's no reason I should have, because I certainly make enough to take care of myself.
Thank you all so much for the outpouring of support and offers to help. The situation, at second glance, is a lot more workable than I thought; if something changes drastically (let's keep our fingers crossed) then I'll have to revisit everything. But really, I'll be all right. There's a possibility there's some government program out there that could help, there's also the idea of having the work done at a dental school, or getting a second opinion and seeing what possible alternatives are. Now that I've calmed down, I can figure this out.
In other news, I should be getting a car by the end of the month, and at least a learner's permit. NaPoeWriMo 2006 is over and done with, but I still have the desire to write poetry. And Grey Warming Over is now my top writing priority.
But first, work.
