Had a quick and enjoyable visit to Dr. Bobbitt last week.  I needed a couple fillings, plus some older ones replaced.  All part of the dental plan we formulated a little over a year ago.  Procedure took a couple hours, and I got to watch with a little hand held mirror.  It’s kinda freaky seeing the drilled out holes in your teeth before they are filled.

The only excitement came when he noticed that I’m going to need a wisdom tooth removed.  He didn’t sugar coat the prognosis at all – and told me to find a 2 week period as soon as I could to have it removed.  At first I wasn’t too upset, as I’ve already had my top 2 out.  He told me the bottom ones are worse.  Sigh.

Funny joke from the Dr: The problem with dentistry is that it’s all in your head. 

Some fun stuff from the appointment – his assistant Cat showed off her new crown which has a New York Yankees emblem on it.  Not sure about this, but it sounded like Dr. Bobbitt did the whole thing – from design and creation to putting it on.  It was pretty kewl – aside from the fact that it was a Yankees emblem.   She’s got a Yankees sticker in the window too.  I don’t mind it so much, as the person I spend the most time with at the office,  Debbie – the one who does my cleanings and exams,  is a major Red Sox fan.  She has a picture of catcher Jason Varitek on the ceiling that her patients see during cleanings – so in my mind she’s the bigger fan.  Pearl at the front desk is also a very much a Red Sox fan.

I’m not sure about Dr. Bobbitt.  I think I heard Cat imply he was a Yankees fan… and maybe he’s hiding that because he knows I’m a Red Sox fan… but it’s hard to be sure.

One of the more impressive parts of the experience – the following night (the day before Thanksgiving) Dr. Bobbit called me up to check on everything, how the fillings felt after the novocaine wore off.  That’s an impressive piece of customer service.

Read the book Fast Food Nation about a year ago, and since then haven’t touched McDonald’s ground beef. Until Sunday that is – we we’re working on the house all morning and I could feel my blood sugar dropping and knew if I didn’t eat soon I’d start getting very edgy.

At the drive through I asked for a sausage McMuffin and was told “We’re on Lunch Now” and the McDonald’s marketing machine forced me to choose the Quarter Pounder with Cheese. One bite and I realized the center was pink and cold. I should mention that the grease was extreme, dripping all over my hand – and they failed to provide the usual napkin.

I turned the car around and took it back. The manager told one of the lackey’s to “Get the Grill fixed” and he went back and reported that “It’s been fixed.” I got my money back, and asked for (and received) a couple crappy Happy Meal toys for the kids in addition. I felt disgusting the rest of the morning, and could smell the McGrease on my fingers.

So in all fairness – I gave McD’s another chance and the blew it – McRoyally.

According to Dr. Bobbitt I had 9 fillings done yesterday. He said most were really small, and I think 3 of them were “replacement” jobs. The good doctor and his assistant Jessie had me in the chair for about 3 hours. Once again I was highly impressed with the equipment and techniques, so here’s a list of stuff they did:

1. Fixed a chipped tooth: Dr. Bobbitt skill was really evident here. I’m gonna call it “deft” because it was clear he’s an expert at building teeth. He made it look easy. He did it fast. There were no mistakes. My sister mentioned he’s into woodworking. He should definatly insure his hands.

2.Laser: It is used in place of the drills – but unfortunately it only works on regular tooth material, not old fillings or decay, so there was some drilling.

3. Dental Dam: I might have had one of these before, but I don’t remember, cause I couldn’t see. Which brings me to…

4. Mirror: They always give me a little mirror to hold so I can watch what’s going on. It was the first time I was able to get an up close look at the inside of my own teeth, after the drilling but before the filling.

5. Anesthesia: Given the choice, I’d say knock me out – but the usual prick of the Novocain wasn’t so bad – Dr. Bobbitt was very good at distracting me so it wasn’t as painful, and if I was knocked out I woulda missed the lasers.

Having my mouth held open for 3 hrs sucked, and the chair made my arm fall asleep, but through it all they seemed to anticipate everything I was feeling, and explaining it to me. I might bring a CD next time, because they were spinning a new Jimmy Buffet CD. For some reason I’m not into Buffet… even though I love sailing, and I even have a couple Buffet tunes on my iPod. I suppose I really like the idea of Buffet, but when it comes to the actual music I find myself reaching for the “skip” button.

Had another dental visit, 2nd part of the cleaning and got my score raised from 30 to 74. They do the score with a dental tool with a scale on the side, and measure your gums at a couple spots on each tooth, and put it all on a chart and do some math to get a number. 100 is the best you can get I think, and on my first visit I was in the 30’s, and second visit was a 74.

This number has motivated me to brush and floss – two things I was not very prone to do in the past. The reason is because I want to beat that number – it’s an attainable goal. Kind of like loosing weight – for me I wouldn’t do it unless there was scale and I could see evidence of progress.

The latest visit was with Debbie, and she once again showed me how to brush and floss. I think it sank in this time. Funny part is it also changes how I brush the kids teeth and they get all mad expecting the “Say Cheese” part and not getting it.

Debbie is also a Red Sox fan, so I’m gonna try to schedule my next visit during a day game and bring a radio to listen to. I was reminded of the Bill Cosby sketch about how his dentist wanted to talk to him and he couldn’t because his mouth was full of dental tools. I had to compile my comments on the Red Sox discussions and summarize them in the couple seconds you get after rinsing.

Also sending some more Dental Kudos to Pearl the front desk administrator who is helping me navigate the insurance-sea, which is an expensive place to be. Dr. Bobbit isn’t in our insurances program or list or something – so they don’t cover 100%, and it’s proving difficult to justify the cost when Suzy & thd kids haven’t had to pay a penny for a visit ever.

Had another appointment today at Dr. Bobbitt’s office. Today was a cleaning (there’s a technical term for it) by Debbie. Again I was struck by the openness and constant flow of information. I’m pretty sure every dentist I’ve been to tried to get this information across – and I’m pretty sure I tried to understand it – but today I finally grasped the whole cycle of plaque to calculus (tarter), and why flossing is key. Debbie’s analogy of breaking up the platoons before they could gang up is going to be very easy to remember.

And a huge apology goes out to Pearl- who is my first and last contact for each visit. She’s very friendly and made becoming a new patient as simple a process as I could imagine. Turns out she’s from the same town as me, so we had some politics to agree on.

Just got back from the most satisfying dental experience I’ve ever had. My new dentist Dr. Scott Bobbitt was recommended by my sister (whom if she had a blog would be a link like Dr. Bobbitt).

I liked my last dentist – she was cute – but I think she left the practice she was at and they refused to tell me where she went.

Enter Dr. Bobbitt: I met him at my sisters surprise birthday party – she introduced him as “Your new dentist” and she was right. This guy doesn’t just know his stuff – he’s got a passion for it. I’m hesitant to get into it more because the introduction to his dental methodology is so well delivered that I know I won’t do it justice.

Here’s why I was so impressed: During the initial examination I knew what was going on every step of the way. I understood the language going back and forth between him and his assistant Cat, because he explained it – and I could see her entering the info on the LCD display mirroring her workstation display that was obviously there for the patient alone. As the examination progresses I started to feel bad that I didn’t have more questions – Dr. Bobbitt was constantly querying me to make sure I understood what was going on.

And another thing – he’s got lasers. When he started in with that and asked if I’d seen it on the website I was kinda sad I hadn’t. What an awesome advance in dentistry. If I was doing his website I’d start it with something like “Remember that pokey thing that they examine your teeth with? Well we do it with a laser.” That alone would have had me in the chair months ago. The all digital xRay and digital teeth picture stuff was just icing on the cake for my gagdet-minded self.

In well under 2 hrs the good doctor and I had a plan – my plan – and I not only understood it but agreed with it in every detail. He went down some crazy roads of some weird stuff we could do (bone grafts etc…) – but in the end we have a pretty simple plan to take care of my dental health. That’s what I wanted all along and didn’t even know it.

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Originally uploaded by M@.

Had a most excellent friday+saturday camping with my daughter Anna and a couple other Dad’s with their kids too. It went excatly as planned… camping with kids, got them to bed for Dad’s hanging out around the campfire. Woke up to find that the bears had got into the cooler and drank the rest of the beers… at least they put the bottles in the bottle pile nicely. Did a quick hike up the Tuckerman trail to the Crystal Cascade and Anna slept almost the whole way home. Kudos to Kevin for the planning.