My sister in dental hell. I have so much work to be done. Ugh. The only good move I made is that I fired my dentist and canceled my dental insurance. I was unhappy with the last 3 dentists so I went to see my SIL's dentist because she loves her, but still just was lacking confidence. So a few of the women in the nail salon suggested I go to my former university and check out the dental school. So I did. It was a few hours, but I left with more confidence than I have had in many years. I really felt the students had only one interest and that was fixing my teeth. No financial incentive. And it is still less coin than it was with my insurance. Not as cheap as going south of the border, but much cheaper, and they were great.

While waiting for my student to come out I watched about 20-30 patients greeting their assigned students for subsequent visits. I'd say 90% of them greeted with hugs. I was waiting for emergency clinic work so I was with a higher level student but when I go back in a week or so I will have my full evaluation and get assigned my individual student who will work my whole treatment plan with I believe 1 visit a week until it is all done.

The clinic visit involved 3-1/2 hours in the chair removing 3 old fillings from my old decrepit molar. Then packing it all with a temp pending me coming back. BUT, the shots didn't hurt and they were really step by step showing me everything and discussing everything and I felt as good as a person can after several hours of torture.

Yikes, Laura.

I've been seeing my dentist for years, and he seems competent, and the staff is really nice. But between the root canal and the crown, I'm out $1100 in the last week because my insurance has a high cap and covers 100% of my regular cleanings, but only 40% or so of this work. Yikes.

In other news, the internet is losing its shit over The Vulgar Talking Yam's "speech" on immigration tonight. Apparently he's gone full Hitler.

DH is forcing me to listen to the speech. I have quite a buffer on the TV. Mostly I have just heard a bunch of shouting because I have been paying more attention to my computer. He ain't softening.

My teeth are crap. I didn't get Mom's teeth. She had 1 cavity in her 95 years. At this point my 50+ year old fillings are all falling apart. Just a long list of things to fix, but I am good with taking my time with the Dental students. I need to get one implant or bridge or something too. I had one "baby" tooth for about 60 years because there was no adult tooth under it to push it out, but it finally fell apart so that blank needs to be filled.

The families of people murdered by The Illegals are being paraded to the mic now. I really have to FF now.

I had my wisdom teeth pulled by a dental surgical intern. Turned out okay, although three teeth were impacted and I ended up with nerve damage that took a year to heal. So... not great. But it only cost $250! At the time, that was a great deal.

My mom had great teeth; my dad, not so much. I think I'm in the middle, so it could be worse.

But I dislike the cost, and the discomfort. I wish I'd made more tapioca pudding tonight.

Apparently my mom had her early dental work done by Olivier's character from Marathon man, traumatizing her into avoiding dental care for a number of decades. She goes to my dentist now, who's good, but the work she needed (and still needs) is quite extensive. Dad had a bunch of fevers from malaria when he was little, which resulted in his teeth having the consistency of hard chalk. He had the last of them pulled by an Army dentist in his 20s, and has had full plate dentures for more than half a century.

I have an appointment with a dentist next Thursday. I'm really worried because I know there's an issue with at least one molar probably two (side by side) and I've had intermittent jaw pain. I found once dentist that's in the same town as my therapist but that was a disaster (took 3 months to get a first appointment then I had an anxiety attack and called to cancel and tried to reschedule and I think they were just stressing the importance of not cancelling at the last minute but I felt attacked and hung up). It's taken me this long to call someone. My dental insurance runs out at the end of the year.

I hope what ever work has to be done will be tolerable for me. I I need to call the new dentist back and explain about my relevant medical issues (PTSD, dental phobia, etc) to give them a heads up. This dentist is in town and they had a whole section on their website about sedation dentistry and dental anxiety with outside links so I feel somewhat better. And I have my coping plan and I think at this point I've gotten over being an adult who has to hold a small stuffed animal to help deal with the dentist.

You know, you don't hear much about Hillary. She's pretty likely to become the first female President, and yet there's almost no notice. What a weird election.

Trump believes all press coverage is good press coverage. The media does love a train wreck.

My theory about Trump is that he's an idiot. And that he is an idiot by choice, lacking any drive to learn anything.

Press generates $$ for him in most cases. People buy his books, merch. His speaking fees go up, his kids get more exposure, they get speaking bookings. I really think it is all about the $$ and now a little about the worship.