Oops, I Did It Again

Hello from Bangkok, y’all!! (FYI, that’s an American term for our global readers…both of you.) It’s our last night here. It’s been not “One Night in Bangkok,” but by dint of nature — foreshadowing! — nearly ten, broken up by a five-day beach trip to the island of Koh Samet. We leave for Myanmar tomorrow, and will have spent about two weeks here.

We arrived in Bangkok on New Year’s Day. I know it sounds a bit strange, but Bangkok for us has been a vacation from our vacation. It’s a cosmopolitan city with all the amenities of home, but here in Asia. After our adventurous loop through Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, it gave us a chance to rest, regroup, and restock supplies; to take care of some housekeeping. The internet works well here, for example. We got our visas for Myanmar. We mailed a box of souvenirs home. And one other thing…

Because of its many canals, Bangkok is called the “Venice of the East.” And guess what?! I got my very own canal! A very small canal…

I got a route canal! In Bangkok!

Let’s recap: when I was about ten years old, I smashed my teeth on the side of a pool. I like to refer to this unique way of losing one’s teeth as “poolside dining.” My four front teeth are all fake. Then, as luck would have it, one of my caps broke off on this trip. Here’s a fun way to lose your dental work should you have the self-loathing desire to hemorrhage money and be inconvenienced:

1. Leave home for a year.
2. Fly to the other side of the planet.
3. Visit a country with questionable health care options (like, you know, China).
4. Go somewhere totally remote (like, you know, the Great Wall of China).
5. Bite into a Snickers bar.

So I got a “provisional crown” in Taipei, and planned on getting a new permanent cap later, in either New Zealand or Australia. But while we were at dinner on New Year’s Day, my tooth felt a little loose – the one with the provisional crown. I didn’t mention it to Amy, because I wasn’t sure what was going on. I only sort-of remember what a loose tooth feels like, because since I was ten, several of my teeth have been bolted to my skull. Plus, we were eating sushi – it’s not like we were eating candy apples and corn on the cob. Then later, back in the hotel room, it was definitely shaky. I finally told Amy. I tested the tooth a little bit… And very easily, this monster came out:

I KNOW, RIGHT?!! GROSS!! The whole damn post came out, cap and all. I freaked out a bit. Here’s a recreation:

NOTE: Based on the last photo alone, I’ve been offered a try-out with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

But a stroke of luck that it happened when, where, and how it did – first, I could slide it back in and have a tooth. It was loose, yes, but usable, and fun freaking people out, like when your great uncle took out his dentures after a few Canadian Clubs at Thanksgiving. Second, there are about a thousand really good dentists in Bangkok – it’s a dental work destination. And lastly – they work fast and cheap.

Here’s how easy it is to get dental work done over here: we got up the next day and walked into a dental office in the mall across the street, recommended by our travel insurance folks.

I waited for five minutes, and then the dentist met with me for a consult. As a walk-in, mind you. I’ve waited longer to use the men’s room at Yankee Stadium. Turns out that that tooth in particular, after the pool accident, was stunted, so the post didn’t have much to hang on to. And after so many years of use, and all the monkeying with it in Taipei, it just gave up. So my best option – for now – was to get a new post (requiring a route canal) and permanent cap, and get dental implants in the future. “So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.”

This was on Thursday the 2nd. The route canal was scheduled for Saturday the 4th. Fittings and temp crown scheduled for Sunday the 5th. I was there for a half-hour and billed $5 for an x-ray. Five bucks. Take that American Healthcare System!

Saturday afternoon Amy and I went back to the mall. Amy was going to buy some things from the supermarket and drugstore. I was going to buy complex dental surgery from a mall dentist is Thailand. It was going to be awesome.

There’s something to be said about Thai dentistry, or at least the practice I went to. They’re both very thorough and very sterile. And some fun new things happened, like this: after I got the local anesthesia, the doctor covered my other teeth and gums with some kind of latex dental dam – kinky! It’s supposed to keep the route canal from getting infected. I was like “The Gimp” in Pulp Fiction.

And this: after all the drilling, they sprayed something like Clorox in my mouth – I guess it was some kind of disinfectant. With that, my mouth kept filling up with saliva, it was like I was getting water-boarded. Then I was taken to get an x-ray. As I sat there with the heavy lead protector on my chest, I drooled about a half-pint of spittle all over the vest. The dental assistants said something to each other in Thai that I can only imagine was something like, “we got ourselves a drooler!”

So I got the route canal, I was fitted for the new crown, and they put in a temporary crown for a week. Funny – they used the Taipei crown as the temporary, and I asked that when it was all over, if they’d please give it back to me. I wanted to keep it for my museum, with my bowling trophy and flip-flops. But they never gave it back. I guess there’s good money to be made on eBay with my old dental work, like selling a lock of Justin Beiber’s hair, or a vial George Clooney’s tears.

We had to wait about a week before the new crown was ready, so we went to the beach in Koh Samet for five days. And when we got back this week, the rest was pretty easy – just a matter of getting the new crown put in. I wish there was something exciting to tell you about that, but if you’ve ever seen a piece of hardware getting mounted to a wall, or a small dental fixture getting mounted to your face, then it’s no big deal. But here’s the final results:

So I’m basically as good as new – until it’s time to get dental implants. And won’t that be great, when I go around telling everyone I got implants: “Hey, I got implants! Want to see them?! They cost me a few thousand dollars, but don’t they look- HEY, NO TOUCHING!!”

Anyhoo…tomorrow we’re off to Myanmar, and who knows what the internet will be like there. But I tell you this: when we climb Mt. Kyaiktiyo to see the Golden Rock and Buddhist temple, I will not be biting into a Snickers bar at the summit. Or possibly ever again.