The appointment
I made an appointment with the oral surgeon. I confirmed that they take my insurance, which they do. I made sure that the driver would be available. The night before the day of the appointment, the driver calls to say that he cannot make it. He has no explanation. This one of life’s problems when you are a paraplegic with multiple sclerosis. You rely on other people and sometimes they come through for you, and sometimes they don’t. Fortunately, I was able to get another driver.
The day of the appointment
The driver finally shows up but he is late. There is traffic on the expressway, and we arrive late. I give the receptionist, the x-rays which are on my smartphone, and I email the x-rays to the receptionist. Apparently, I don’t fit in the oral surgeon’s x-ray machine in my power wheelchair.
Seeing the Oral Surgeon
I waited an hour and finally the oral surgeon sees me. I explain that I am there for one extraction. He explained that someday the other two would need to be extracted because they really cannot be saved. I was considering anaethesia, but since this was not my regular driver, and he no idea how the van door and ramp work, and no idea how to get home, I decided to have an injection. The oral surgeon gave me two injections. He said that the tooth was being held together by a cap that was over the tooth. The tooth came out in pieces. He said this was a difficult extraction, because the bone underneath was strong but the tooth was cracked in pieces. It was being held together by the cap and in place by the strong bone. I left the office with instructions to bite down for at least 20 minutes.
Leaving the Oral Surgeon
Of course, I had to ask the driver for the key, so that the door would open and the ramp come out, which it did flawlessly. This is particularly difficult to say when you must bite down for 20 minutes. Then I directed him on the way home. We stopped off at Autospa which finally had the dip stick in stock. The big job was getting the old broken dip stick out of the van. This was finally accomplished, at no cost to me since an Autospa employee broke the dip stick while doing an oil change.
Arriving Home
We left Autospa and went home. Now I had to continue recovering from the pump (battery) replacement surgery, and the oral surgery.