Todavia lo Tengo
So I still have my tooth. As I no longer am experiencing pain and my body is chock-full of antibiotics and as the x-ray doesn't show a problem, we're leaving it alone for now. My jaw is still a little sore, but I managed to eat pancakes and eggs for lunch at Amigos without sending myself into a howling fit. The fact that I still have two more pills in case something goes south in the night gives me some semblance of peace of mind.
It turned out to be a nice meeting, we discussed the amount of work and money that went into fixing the tooth last year, and my two days of intense research into narcotics and whiskey as pain relief. Most dentists in the US use some form of narcotic in prescription from Tylenol 3 to Vicadin to much stronger stuff for major problems. Here in Panama they tend to shy away from that stuff, but we went through her book of available drugs from the local distributor and picked out something nice. If nothing else I might have saved some poor bastard in the future from suffering needlessly.
She doled me out some special 'sensitive' toothpaste and some kind of gel to rub on my gums and charged me ten bucks for the two visits and x-ray. I finally asked her what the extraction would have cost and she told me twenty, no more than forty if there were complications. That's my kind of dentist's bill. Which brings to mind the best chiropractor I ever had, Dr. John in Burbank.
Considering that half the town works for Disney and the other half is dedicated to keeping those employees awash in tacos and margaritas, Doctor John will take your insurance, but if you don't have any he'll take $35 cash per visit. That'll barely get you lunch at the Smokehouse or that other place at the corner of Verdugo and Olive (the name of which escapes me but I remember the steak, ummm.) Drop a comment and I'll dig up his number.
The saga continues.
