Of Dental Prosthesis and Anal Piercing
I’ve been spending so much of my time with dentists since I fainted on the street early this year, dropping on the concrete ground face down, breaking my five upper front teeth, two of which capped with dental crowns.
A dentist has his clinic in the building complex where I live, and since I had difficulties walking due to the accident, I said yes, I would see him when a neighbor mentioned his practice to me. It takes about a couple of minutes to reach his clinic from my building but handicapped that I was at the time, it may take me a good ten minutes to reach his doorstep. My regular dentist is just a couple of blocks away, but it may take me forever to get to her clinic.
This new dentist used to have a contract with the Austrian Government Health Services. He went private starting that particular day, which meant that he would only entertain private patients who can afford to pay cash or have private insurance that will cover the expenses. I have supplementary private insurance, which covers eighty percent of my dental bills, so it should not be a problem. Or so I thought.
Having told the new dentist that I have private health insurance, he decided to pull out my broken front teeth—three of them at once, and asked me to come back the following week for the remaining two.
My sister was very annoyed and upset that I let this dentist pull out my teeth. She herself is a dentist but lives and works in Sydney, so she could not be of much help except to give expert advice. Dentists only pull out a tooth when there is no other way to save it. She saw on our video chat that a good portion of my teeth was damaged, but then it may not be necessary to pull them out. A dental crown can still make them look alright. My dentist probably knew that they couldn’t be saved anymore, I said. Probably not, she agreed, but tell him not to pull out any teeth anymore. I did not tell her about the next tooth extraction.
I lost weight that week. This alone should make me happy, but what a way to do it! Friends asked me how I did it. Have a bad fall, I told them. Truth be told, I was not eating solid food lest my wound bleeds, and by the time the wound healed, it was time to see the dentist for yet another tooth extraction. When done, he scheduled me for another appointment the following week. My remaining wisdom tooth; this he said when I could not speak. He stuffed my gum with a big cotton swab which he asked me to bite on tightly to prevent the wound from bleeding. Since high school, I had my wisdom tooth, and I did not have any problem with it until this sadist of dentist invented one.
Another week of porridge and soup was prepared by my accidental caregiver—my friend and neighbor Marilyn. They were coming out of my ears already, I said to her. Swallowing them was not easy either, especially when you do it from one side of your mouth. More weight lost without me even trying, despite the ice cream and cakes from the grocery store Marilyn would get for me. At nights I would dream of pork and chicken adobo and rice, Kümmelbraten—crispy oven-baked pork belly with caraway seeds, schnitzel, and noodles, too; why not? I could see Richard, a Viennese friend, rolling his eyes once he hears that I actually mentioned the unmentionable—schnitzel and noodles.
„Nobody in Austria eats Schnitzel and noodles; it is ridiculous,“ he once told me. But Julie Andrews was the first to mention it in a song she was teaching the Von Trap kids to sing in The Sound of Music. The film may have made the country known worldwide, but it never made it to the Austrian Kinos.
It would take me a while, though, before I could eat my favorite foods like Kümmelbraten and Schnitzel sans the noodles but with boiled potatoes glistening with butter. That was after my last wisdom tooth extraction. As expected, my dentist asked me to come back the week after. Why? He did not tell me. His secretary scribbled on a piece of paper the date of my next visit. That would mean a week of more porridge and soup and hallucinations, craving forbidden foods.
„I wanted to have a break from tooth extractions,“ I told my dentist the day he was to pull out yet another tooth. I need time to recover from the painful ordeal fully, I said. He was disappointed hearing this, saying it would have been nice just to let him do his job. Having said that, he asked me to come back the following week so we could discuss dentures, probably a dental implant. I made it clear from day one that he can rule out dental implants because I am not doing it. I had four of them already, done by another dentist, but the procedure was long and painfully excruciating. I didn’t want to go through the torture all over again. Of course, not those, he said, and yet, there he was suggesting the most expensive and painful method. He knew that I have private insurance, so he was probably thinking, why settle for less?
It did not happen. Two days before my scheduled appointment, I showed up in his clinic and told his secretary that I wanted to cancel the scheduled visit. She asked me for a date when I wanted to have it moved. I said I would call later. I did not.
I had no pending bills with them because I paid them at the end of each visit. I don’t want to remember the total sum I paid. It was huge.
I went to another dentist who came highly recommended by a good friend. Seeing his clinic for the first time made me comfortable at once. The reception area was carefully designed to make it look more like a living room, with light grey wallpaper that matched the drapes and period furniture. The soft lights help relieve the apprehension one feels when visiting dentists. And it did not have that disgusting smell we usually associate with dental clinics—that smell of ammonia and tincture of iodine or the burning smell coming from a tooth getting drilled.
This new dentist is a handsome guy: tall and slank, blonde hair, blue eyes, soft-spoken, and makes gentle slides when he walks. Hmm, I can smell something. It takes one to know one, they say. But that’s another story.
Unlike the other dentist who made me always wait an hour past my appointed time, this dentist sees to it that he could attend to his patients on the scheduled hour, perhaps a couple of minutes late past the hour, but it was not tragic.
A picture of happiness. My dentist made me smile again.
This dentist made me smile a week later when I finally got my temporary denture. It was made of plastic, but no one could tell. It has thin metal hooks on both ends, which do not show when you wear them. The permanent denture would be much better, my dentist said. He suggested three options. The first one would be made of zirconia crowns and would cost me €14k. Wadafak! Did I tell myself—a fourteen-thousand euro denture which I would only take to the grave with me? I am seventy-two years old! Should I perhaps leave instruction to my next kin to keep it as a family heirloom displayed in the living room for visitors to see and admire while sipping a glass of wine and munching salmon canapes?
The second option was an implant, to which I said no way. He thought it would be less expensive, but it was not. It would be a thousand euro more to make it. And the insurance cannot, and will not, fully cover both two options.
I settled for the third choice. It would be a prosthesis alright and would be made of porcelain caps that would cost about €3k, which is the maximum amount I am entitled to get for two years with my private insurance. And with that amount, I won’t mind taking it with me seven feet under. No one, not even the most diligent grave robber, would waste time desecrating my final resting place for a porcelain-capped prosthesis. It might be possible, though, if I had a fourteen thousand euro-worth of dentures. I could even be held up on the street by criminals, asking me to open my mouth instead of raising my arms.
„But your temporary prosthesis looks good, so why not keep it?“ was what everyone I know was telling me. They could be right. It was maybe a temporary thing, but it could hold out for a while like what my dentist assured me, but nothing beats a permanent one.
It lasted for three months.
Like every night before going to bed, I took my dental prosthesis out the other night to brush with soap. Toothpaste can damage it, my dentist told me. I’d been doing this ritual religiously since the day I got it. Rinsing it, I noticed one of the wire hooks broke apart. It may have snapped when I pulled my prosthesis out. The missing part may still be clinging to the tooth, I hoped. It was not there, neither on the sink, because the water was running and no doubt carried the missing hook down the drain.
How did it break? I thought of anything hard I ate that day. Nothing! I had guests who came to dinner at my place, and we had fried vegetable spring rolls and glass noodles. They could not break the thin metal hook.
I could hardly sleep that night. I was in a panic. I just hoped that it snapped while brushing those false teeth. (False teeth? Why wear them when they’re false anyway?) But what if I actually swallowed it? It can damage my intestines. What if it comes out and gets stuck in my anus? I have seen pierced eyebrows, pierced tounges, pierced belly buttons, pierced lips, pierced tits, pierced genitals, but pierced anus? That would be one for the record.
Emma, a dentist friend who lives and works in Vienna, called to ask how my dental issue was going. Bad, I said, and I told her my story.
Emma, my dentist friend, advised me to eat Sauerkraut
„Eat Sauerkraut,“ was her advice. Walter has a jar of Sauerkraut he bought recently, but he didn’t like it. Throw it away; it didn’t taste good, he said. It’s been sitting on the terrace dining table for weeks now, and I have yet to get rid of it. Things happen for a reason; I was reminded again when Emma suggested them to me. Why Sauerkraut? I asked. They’re fibers, and the metal can get hooked to them. How would I know was my next question. “You will see it next time you do your rituals,” was her quick reply followed by her signature laugh—hysterical, and as always, infectious.
Or let it hang in my anus and break all body piercing records. Something I can brag about and show off.