Nothing so major to send me to the ER but it is also not covered nearly as well by Medicare/MediCal.
Teeth. That I have no money to pay for.
I have been missing one of my front teeth for a VERY long time, the second tooth next to it has been crumbling and decaying over the years and in the past four or five years finally crumbled to only a sharp icicle. I've been making do with eating but then day before yesterday I decided to make some crunchy tacos. Bad idea. I bit down on my taco and it felt like the tortilla jabbed me in that spot where the pointy tooth was. Rather painful and I thought for sure I'd be bleeding like a stuck pig. Turns out it likely split the pointy part from the rest of the rotting tooth base.
The root is completely rotted away so there's no deep pain but now that sharp pointy bit is now loose and wiggly because I was trying to eat a piece of chicken or sandwich or something yesterday and that was another bad idea. I thought for sure I'd dislodged it enough to pull it out but it's still in there enough that it would be five times more painful to try and yank it. Not to mention the amount of blood that might happen. And of course.... the second incident happens on a Friday afternoon... I am flat broke of course and the designated location that Delta Dental has me going to is a few miles east up the freeway. I would have to call and set up an appointment, blah blah....
I looked on the website and realized that the Western Dental office down the street from me will take Delta patients, great! I go through the motions of changing my preferred dentist to that office. I won't be able to contact them or make arrangements until June 1.
Besides it being uncomfortable every time I move my mouth or do anything that I'm used to do doing with my lips, I can't eat sandwiches or anything that involves the front of my mouth. So hot dogs.. fork and knife, pizza... fork and knife.... anything that requires biting is now small chunks to eat on what remaining molars I have.
The other issue is surgery. I remember this from years ago that if you are going under general anesthesia they do not want any loose teeth or obvious infection in your mouth, because of doing intubation and all that going through there. So before they can set me up for breast surgery this has to be taken care of and I don't know when pre-op appointment is yet because that's supposed to happen in June.
Now, why have I let it go this far for so long? Cost. Money. Deep fear of dentists that goes all the way back to being a child. Teeth and eyes aren't covered sufficiently even under Medicare or any other insurance for that matter. So I have to start working on that on Monday and figure out how much coverage will cost (initial reading of new coverage says an extra $55/month premium for dental). Then there's a lack of information on how much the procedure will cost to get the tooth dealt with. Is it an extraction, do they have to do something drastic that is technically surgical? That can drive the cost up from double to triple digits.
THEN there's the whole thing about being on a payment plan with the dentist for doing dentures. Because that's the only thing left that will replace all my teeth. All of them have cavities, sensitivity to hot and cold temperatures and of course missing half of what I should have.
A side effect of not having teeth to eat with, is not wanting to eat anything. I had two scrambled eggs with cheese and green onions for breakfast. No toast (can't bite) took my pills and have now had a coke with ice. I'm not that hungry right now. I should be as that egg was about five hours ago but I guess I'll figure out something to eat when Jon wakes up from his nap. Probably should take some Tylenol too, haven't had any since yesterday and fingers are staring to be cranky.
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