Posted 1/10/24
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. -James 1:17
Ay Caramba, does my mouth hurt! I have been blessed with really good teeth for the first deck of playing card of years of my life minus one stinkin’ molar. It is waaaay back there and about two years ago I broke part of it chewing on ice. Note: I am an ice chewer. I love eating ice. I am something of an ice connoisseur, greatly preferring Sonic and McDonald’s ice to that of the woeful Burger King and Wendy’s ice chunks. Good ice is tasty, it gives you badly needed water, and it is stress-relieving. There is something satisfying about a nice, cleanly crunched piece of frozen H2O. That is, until it breaks your tooth. 🙁
I feel like it is not dishonoring to say that my parents and step parents would all agree that teeth are super important and they wish that there was more tools available when they were young. My mom struggled with her teeth to the point of having dentures when she was very young. Her dad pushed the issue as he was paying for constant visits and repairs.
This lone tooth, which I chronicled in this surely award-winning piece (LOL), had my beloved ice break its repaired root… and had to be pulled yesterday at 3:15 PM CST (RIP). Now, a day later, I still feel like I was hit by a bat as I recover from the experience. The team of 2-3 (depending on the minute), pushed, pulled, pried, yanked and hammered the heck out of the thing. The painful to receive shots designed ironically to deaden pain, were only a little effective. The laughing gas took my mind off the pain I was feeling I suppose, but was generally mediocre. And now I sit, waiting for it to heal…and thinking about a way to shoehorn this experience into a piece for you.
Reflections on a Tooth-astrophe
- Permanent teeth are meant to be just that. In comparison, our baby teeth got loose and either mom or that one teacher who deserves a medal because she is the one everyone calls in school to pull the teeth of a student who has a dangler. They just yank’er out and all is well. These permanent one…not so much! We chew and bite all sorts of things throughout life with these teeth so much that we assume that they will always be with us. Now that my molar friend is gone, there is a huge hole in my bite. Insert your Alzheimer’s reference here. 🙁
- Oral health has connections with dementia– LINK Take care of your mouth.
- According to one dentist in a sales-information piece, we can put a whopping 265 pounds per square inch on our teeth! While this is impressive, a Nile Croc is capable of a whopping 5,000 PSI! They may not seem super durable in hard times, but teeth are tough. My mom is also tough. She is going into year 15 with Mixed dementia (Vascular Dementia and Alzheimer’s). She fights not only the disease, but sadness and guilt of imposing on us somehow…and does it her very best with a smile
- The tooth-pullin’ process varies. I went to an Endodontist to get it pulled. An oral surgeon probably should have been the expert because these folks beat the crud out of me trying to get this thing pulled. Have I mentioned that before? No, it isn’t a warning sign of dementia in this situation, it is more a word of spite. Sometimes a tooth is easy to pull. Other times, yesterday happens. I guess it depends on the roots, the bone, and other factors… The raw materials going into the suffering can, but is NOT guaranteed to make a difference. My mom was in very good shape in 2009 when she was diagnosed. She walked a lot, ate well, exercised her brain, and did everything right. Her main flaw was smoking earlier in life, but she had quit about 10 years prior to diagnosis. Did that definitely contribute to her staying with us for nearly 15 years? Probably, but no guarantees. Some last longer after treating their bodies worse. Others are in great shape…and pass away in 2-3 years. You don’t know until you sit in the dementia chair with the LED lights blinding you… Pretty much nothing in dementia is 100% guaranteed other than, as of 1/10/24, the end result. (However, we are fighting to change that!)
- The biggest pains come in the smallest spots sometimes! Between teeth pain and eye pain, I would rather break a femur than go through either. Funny how we are high, might, and strong and a speck of dust gets in our eye and we are reduced to a sniveling child. Same with teeth… Same with the brain. Some of the smallest parts of the brain, when they are hit by the disease, cause the biggest problems. The mighty Hippocampus is only 1.5-2″, but when it heats hit with pathology, trust me…you know it. 🙁
- It takes a tooth village to eat a taco. I can already see how much of a pain it will be to eat without my molar friend. 🙁 Teeth work together to form surfaces that can crunch stuff (like ice!!! 🙁 ). Things get crowded sometimes (I had braces for 8+ years), but all in all, they are a wonderful little team that are invaluable in keeping us alive! It also takes a village to care for someone with dementia. Don’t go it alone. Just don’t! You will be like someone with missing teeth trying to eat ice. You can get it done, but it will be super hard. Find an area agency on aging near you. Dig deep in the resources of the Alzheimer’s Association. Learn about Hospice for dementia…it is NOT the same as what most expect! It is a critical part of the care team. Learn about Ombudsmen. Talk to your pastor. Talk to your family. This care team approach, in my opinion, has helped my mom live and live well for much of her time with the disease. Need respite help? Call the Alzheimer’s Association (1-800-272-3900) and ask for the Caregiver Relief program. Also, the wonderful folks at HFC help with respite for thousands!: https://www.wearehfc.org/caregivers#caregiver-respite-program
- Prepare– I had read quite a bit about what to expect and, even though it hurt far worse that I think it should of, the process didn’t surprise me and I was far less nervous than I would have been. Hearing the grunts of the football team trying to remove the thing wasn’t something I was as prepared for, but all in all I was ready. Here are a couple of places you can start learning about dementia: LINK and LINK
- Look for joy…it may take floss to find it wedged in strange places– There is good to be hard from my toothpocalypse. My tooth-castrophe? I/we just simply must root out the joy as we go through these things (I know…groaning at my root pun…You et what you pay for here! 😉 ) . My aching tooth will never hurt me again. Ever. It is in a dumpster…it can’t hurt me any more… The price turned out to be cheaper than I expected. We all had a “Whew, that was rough” laugh at the end. Find daily joy as you care for your loved one. There is some to be had. I know it stinks. I completely agree. However, that is easy to see. Find the joy, and, if nothing else, remember that while many, many wonderful memories are gone, so are many, many that weren’t wonderful. Past hurts/abuse/neglect/sadness…they are most likely just as gone as memories of the good times. Oh, and never, ever lose sight of heaven, a place with no pain, sadness, or death and where the teeth last an eternity! For now…A couple of days from now this will all be ancient history. It doesn’t feel like it as I type, but it will.
#EndALZ
Update: Nothing new to report on mom. Same wheeze. Same twitches as is being shocked. Same glimmers of joy every once in a while when we coax our a smile-like try. It will be a couple of days before I can get back to her nursing home, but I surely look forward to catching up.
Me, being a kid, but still taking care of my chompers.
