It all started about eleven months ago, give or take.  I began noticing that there was some kind of a hole on the back side of one of my teeth, right up by the gum line.  Coluldn't tell what it was.  But there was no pain and there was nothing to worry about.  Didn't even tell my favorite husband about it.  

The hole, space, opening, whatever it was just kept on being there.  And then one day, more than a month ago, I was eating something soft when something landed "clunk" on my tongue.  Thankfully I didn't swallow it, so was able to take it out of my mouth and get a good look at what was going on.  To my complete surprise, there was a forty some odd year old gold crown looking back at me.  Now it was time to talk to Jim!  

Since I still wasn't experiencing any discomfort of any kind, and since we had more month left than money, we figured it wouldn't hurt a thing to just live with things the way they were until later.  And today "later" finally rolled around.

We figured the best solution (i.e. the most economical) was to go to a nearby dental clinic.  After all, I only needed to have a tooth pulled.  No big deal.  Nothing to go to the really good, albeit high priced, dentist for.  

We were invited into a small, crowded room and asked to sit on a couple of stools.  A young lady in a white lab coat started asking why I was there.  I explained about the tooth that needed to be pulled.  She had me tilt my head back and open my mouth,  She began "discovering" one cavity after the other in my mouth until she reached the number ten.  She began writing up an order for all this dental work and noting the price of each thing.  Then she wrote out a prescription for two kinds of medication and wrote down the total for that.  Several times Jim tried to ask her what was going on, but she faithfully hushed him up.  She ended by giving us the grand total for all the dental work and the medication that I needed and told us to go pay at the finance window.  She told us to come back at 10:30 a.m. on Friday and she would begin by pulling the tooth.  Very late in the game it dawned on us that she might be the dentist.  We decided to only pay for the antibiotic she had ordered, and skip the other medication, since it was Tylenol which we have at home.  When we went to pick up the medication at the pharmacy window, the pharmacist was quite disturbed at how strong a dose of antibiotic the dentist had ordered.  He asked us to wait for him while he went to talk with her.  After some time he came back and reported that she was very upset with him for questioning her judgment.  She would not give him the time of day.  So he went over her head to the big boss of the place.  We continued waiting, feeling less and less confident in this "dentist" as the seconds dragged by.  In the end, the pharmacist said that the dentist produced a paper that supported the "protocol" she was using for the massive dose of medication for a tooth extraction.  We took the medication and went back home to Shiloh.

Remember that really good, albeit high priced dentist we talked about?  By now she was looking very good.  And who cares how much she charges to pull a tooth!  We gave her a call.  She prescribed the same antibiotic, but a more reasonable dose, and set up an appointment for the extraction for Thursday at noon.   And we will listen carefully to what she says if she starts talking about a mouthful of cavities.  After all she will take ex-rays to back up her  assertions.  

That 10:30 a.m. Friday appointment, we've cancelled it.