A Dentist

So I came in for some major dental work before my trusted dentist retired, and she deadened my mouth so she could shave down the tooth in the lower right corner of my mouth.  Meanwhile she jabbed the other side of my mouth with novocain as well so she could drill out those two old fillings and refill them.

I could tell things were not progressing nicely when she muttered, "Oh, God," when the first filling was removed.  She was silent when the second filling was drilled out but amidst the smell of scorching teeth and the suction required to keep me from drooling as the second filling came out, I noticed the lack of any encouraging salutation when she finished on that side.

Cha-ching!  She took photos, which she showed me, disclosing cracks in both teeth, hidden for decades under the old fillings, running across the floor of the two teeth and which were bad.

She told me that both of those teeth also needed crowns before one or the other shattered under some awkward bite.  And then she set to work on shaving down the tooth she was going to fit for a crown that day, and that's when the real trouble started.

Dentist

A loose crown put back in and a cavity filled.  Now my dental bill for the year was around $700.

Since my dentist is retiring and I think she is very good, I let her at my cavity-filling session talk me into a teeth cleaning and an oral exam.  Apparently these are basic necessities and neither had been done for years.

So I came in for a teeth cleaning, and now my bill for the year was over a thousand dollars.  The dental examination, which was very thorough with some spectacular pictures of breaking and decaying teeth for my viewing pleasure, sent my bill for the year to date rocketing towards two thousand dollars.

From the examination, my dentist identified a tooth that was badly cracked and needed a crown before it broke into pieces in the not-too-distant future.  She also wanted to pull out two old fillings and, if there were no surprises under them, refill them.

What's the old saw?  If it ain't broke, don't fix it?

Against my better judgment I made not one, not two, but three more dentist appointments, to shave one tooth and fit it for a crown, drill out two old fillings and refill them, and insert the permanent crown when it came back from the lab.  After several years of seeing my dentist two or three times every three or four years, I was going to be seeing a lot more of her in the not-too-distant future.

Dentists

So now I was into a dental bill for the current year of a coupla hundred dollars prompted by my dentist having to cement an old crown back in which had been wrenched out by, for heaven's sake, eating a salmon fillet.  As I lay in the chair, my dentist's professional eye saw a cavity.

Gotta take care of that, right?  So I came back the next month to get it filled.

For the first time, my best-ever dentist hurt me.  After administering novocain, she waited, drilled and I jerked.

"Did you feel that?" she asked rhetorically.  "Uh huh," I indicated miserably out of a wide-open mouth.

She administered another ampule of novocain and left to attend to another patient while it took effect.  While I waited for her to come back, I checked the dentist's chair for for its back exit but couldn't locate one.

The dentist came back and finished the drilling and filling with no further pain to me beyond my great anxiety waiting for a jolt of electricity to sear in when the tooth nerve came alive, which sensation didn't repeat itself.  "We'll have to watch that tooth for a possible root canal down the road," she said as she finished up.

Whirr!

It all started with a piece of baked stuffed salmon in the cafeteria.  It was even slightly undercooked so it was tender and moist.

I was enjoying it when somehow it wrenched a crown out.  Now salmon joins the list of taffy, licorice and clam chowder as things which have pulled crowns out, not to be confused with the list of cheez-its and life savers as things which have broken teeth, which results in root canals and crowns.

So the next day I called the dentist.  Unless it hurts, never do two things involving the dentist on the same day.

She urged me to come in immediately, so she could cement it back in.  Apparently bad things can happen if you leave a tooth stump exposed to the real world for a week or two.

I went in, she cemented the crown back in, announced to me that she was retiring this year and said, "You know, Peter, you haven't had your teeth cleaned or had an oral examination in eight years.  You view dentists as emergency stations.  Oh, by the way, you have a bad cavity I noticed in there which you really should get filled."

Hmm.  She's the best dentist I ever had.  "You're leaving?" I thought.  "But what about me?"

The reason she's the best dentist I ever had is because she's never hurt me, in addition to being a superlative dentist.  In 2011 she was rated one of the best dentists in the DC area by the Washingtonian magazine.  Plenty of dentists have hurt me, not on purpose of course, beginning with Dr. Lipscombe on Staten Island who drilled out seven probably shallow cavities when I waved off Novocain in a show of bravado as a young boy.

Ever since that day, I have always looked for the back door in any lay-down chair I put myself in, an escape route I can utilize when I hear that Whirrr!  So, what does this have to do with a running blog?  Well, more to come about my dental woes, it's part of how life intrudes, but also as I discovered today when I arrived early and explored a bit, her office is half a block off MP 17 on the W&OD Trail and my house is half a block off MP 7 on the W&OD Trail.  Hmm.

Busy Times

I ran 90 miles in August, 102 miles in July and 110 miles in June.  I run 4 or 5 times during the noon hour on the Mall on weekdays and pick up any running days on the weekend to ensure that I run five times each week.

Usually I run with one or more running buddies but lately I've been doing a lot more solo runs because everyone at work has gotten so insanely busy (new management showing its mettle on the backs of its workers) and my weekend running buddy left town.  Oh well, we came into this world alone and that's the way we'll leave it too.

The last two days I've run alone, 6 miles around Capital Hill to around Lincoln, and 5 miles around the Tidal Basin to Lincoln going over the Washington Monument hill twice.  Once I settle into each run and my breathing becomes less ragged, my pace picks up to where it almost feels like I'm going as fast as I used to run in the old salad days mid-decade last decade, somewhere in the eights.

Weekends I always run alone.  That's probably a precursor to what I'll be doing after my retirement someday (did I already indicate what management at work is doing at the expense of everyone else there?).

I'm Running

I have bumped up my game since I abandoned running for a couple of years in 2009 due to a chronic injury and then tried to come back in in 2011 with my running buddy when I was close to 250 pounds.  Back then we could barely run two miles before one or the other of us would break down.  Since then we've lost about 100 pounds together, of which I accounted for probably 98 of those.

Coming back, I tried to run four times a week, about 15 miles a week doing 10-minute miles.  Now I run five times a week, about 25 miles a week and do 9:20-minute miles.

I'm in a happy place.  My running buddy trusts me enough to have asked me to jump in and run the last 10K of her upcoming marathon with her.  You probably have heard the old saw that a marathon is a 20 mile warm-up run with an ensuing 10K race.

She's faster than me now.  I will do my best to drive her on in the last portion of her race next month.

Are you there?

So I haven't posted in a while.  But who reads this stuff here anymore anyway.

Facebook (I have an account).  Twitter (I think it's stupid, but I've engaged in a twitter chat, at work).  But what do I know, I'm outdated and ready for the discard pile, my shelf life is past the expiration date.

Instagram.  YouTube.  Today I ordered an entry level android from AT&T to replace my dumb phone that doesn't connect to the Internet.  Am I a half-decade too late?  When I purchased a digital camera to carry on runs in 2013, my young technology mentor sniffed--Now you're only five years behind the times (it wasn't an I-phone).

But I'm still running as I move through my sixties.  Those 45 minutes moving outside, sometimes with friends, working the muscles, taking down runners ahead of me and dreading faster runners coming up behind me ( I look back sometimes), that's what keeps me going.  I have raced twice this year, which I'll tell you about soon.