I had a $3,000- plus down payment visit to the oral surgeon – Dr. Bevins in Bennington, Vt. –  this morning. It was worth every cent.

I will not squawk about the bill or turn the morning into a struggle story. Whenever I am tempted to do that, I always ask the doctor what happened to people who had this problem a hundred years ago. Oh, he said, intrigued with the question, you would be blind or choking or, possibly brain damaged or dead. Of course, he said, you would probably be dead anyway, given your age now. He quickly added that he didn’t mean to say that I was old (he is quite young.)

When I interviewed him once, the Rev. Billy Graham implored me never to complain about the prices of things, I would become angry and unhappy over time, he cautioned. Because they would always go up.

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My visit to the surgical suite today actually began many years ago with my beloved Grandma’s mom and pop store in Providence, R.I.

Minnie Cohen was a stout, tough Russian immigrant who loved me dearly. She spoke almost no English and called me “mein Johnny.” She had a big glass counter in her store filled with penny candy – sugar dots, Tootsie rolls, taffy wrapped in yellow paper, Halvah in big blocks, licorice in long and winding swirls, chocolate pennies and whenever she saw me, she pressed some candy into my hand, there was one section devoted entirely to me.

On Saturdays, Grandma and I would walk me across Providence to the Rialto theater where we would see Jerry Lewis and Abbot And Costello and Charlie Chaplin movies together. If she saw a police car, she would push me into a doorway and stand in front of me, she believed to her dying day that the police would come and force me into the army. Although she never understood a word Jerry Lewis said, she howled with laughter as his face, voice and antics, and her huge purse was stuffed with always crammed with tootsie rolls and licorice sticks. I remember the crackling sound when she unwrapped the candy..

We had wonderful times, me and Grandma, that kind of love is the purest thing there is. But one legacy of it is a mouth filled with fillings, there is enough ore in there to set off radar. When I met my dentist here, he looked at my X-rays and whistled, “wow,” he said “you are no stranger to dentistry.” I am not.

Because of my grandma,  I met my first true sadist at a young age, he was a dentist named Eddie Brown, I will not ever forget his giant drills, I think they were the size of garden sakes, his demonic smile and green laughing gas. He had bad breath, too. Curse him.

*

This morning, I got up early and  went to the Oral and Facial Surgery Clinic in Bennington for what was supposed to be an exam, a referral to figure out what to do with my infection. I have been struggling with a painful infection in my jaw for some time, we thought it needed a root canal, but it turned out be deeper and more complex than that.

The infection had caused the tooth to disintegrate over time and it got into the bone and cheek and some other places. Various antibiotics knocked it down a bit, but it came back each time with renewed vigor so eventually I got referred to the oral surgeons and warned it could be big trouble.

At first I balked at the idea of losing a teeth – this is the first – but after a month of this, I hoped they would just take it out, the infection was getting to me. There were times during the Open House where I was just hanging on, it had spread and the swelling was painful. Dr. Bevins and I hit off, he said things looked a bit “smoochy” in there and I said “you are not from here are you?,” and he said he was from Eastern Connecticut. I said I hope you can take this tooth out, I am sick of pain, antibiotics, and my infection. It was getting old and getting bad.

*

Dr. Bevins didn’t say too much, but he seemed to take me at his word and he got real in a hurry.

He conducted an exam, looked at the X-rays, shot me up with novocaine and wrestled the tooth in question right out of my jaw. He said the infection had done a good amount of damage to the bone and other places and he removed the tooth, it did not go quietly. Then he surprised me by saying he thought we could do an implant right then and there, was I up for it? He said he saw some bone he really liked – something only a committed doctor would say.

I said sure. To be honest, I felt good about waiting a few months, I could perhaps finish my next book not worry about it now.  I thought this process would take months, I was counting on it, but then I realized that I’d be thrilled to get it done in one morning, then I could get back to my book tomorrow. Maybe not tomorrow he said, we’d have to see. I took that to mean it might be a tad uncomfortable.  Suddenly the room filled with nurses, my mouth was clamped open all kinds of drilling, scraping and probing went on. They played nice music, some contemporary rap, although I did hear a man screaming loudly in pain down the hall,  the music wasn’t quite loud enough.

*

I don’t go into detail, but an implant occurs when a tooth is too badly damaged or infected to save, they screw a titanium screw right into the bone in your jaw. To do this, they also had to do a bone graft,  because the infection had so damaged the bone. This was not something I had heard of. (The graft was from a cadaver, Dr. Bevins, said. “Was he or she nice?” I asked. “Sure, you’ll only change a little bit,” he said, adding that he was just kidding.) I had to sign a lot of paperwork to get that dead person’s bone, and I thank him or her for it. I texted Maria to say I might be coming home improved, different. She asked is she should come to get me. (She wanted to, but I wasn’t knocked out and I had only been expecting an exam.)

*

The surgery was a marvel, an amazing thing. We bitch and squawk about health care but then, once in awhile, we come nose to nose with something that would have been unimaginable  just a few years ago, and is not commonplace. Like root canals themselves, implants have evolved.

In my case, they took cuttings from a dead person’s bone, grafted it onto my bone. Then, the doctor drilled a hole and screwed the titanium screw in, much as one would screw a nail into a wall. They had to stitch up the area all around the bone and the extracted tooth and also clean out the infection. In two weeks, they will check and remove the stitches. In two months, my regular dentist will put a $1,000 crown over the screw, which will have grafted completely onto my bone if all goes well (it usually does.) If it does not go well, they will try again at no cost. This procedure was not known until the late 1980’s, and I shudder to think what might have happened to my mouth and jaw before it was refined. It seemed like a big deal to me sitting in that chair, and I suppose it is in some ways a big deal.

But it really isn’t.

I went in at 9 a.m. and was home by lunch. I’m playing the sympathy card to get Maria to take good care of me, and she is startled by the size of my face (she says my nose is drooping, I look like Quasimodo, she is not into nursing much, it distracts from her art).  Because I am a diabetic, I have to be on antibiotics for a bit, we want to be sure and root out the infection. My jaw looks like a basketball was stuffed inside of it, I am trying to talk Maria into letting me see the new animated Dragon 2 movie, she can drop me off at the theater while she goes to yoga. It would be good to see a movie, if I whine and stomp my feet she’ll go for it.

*

I will be  honest of course, the novocaine is wearing off and my mouth and jaw hurts, I’m sticking with over-the-counter pain relievers. Given what was done, the pain is not really that bad. I think things well, I am nothing but grateful to figure out this infection, get my bad tooth out, replace it with a tough little screw and then a crown and move along with my life. Life is filled with challenges and mysteries, I thanked the doctor for taking care of me, I was amazed and appreciative of what they did for me this morning. Now, I will sneak outside and photograph some pencils in a can.