Waiting for a New Tooth

Decades ago, my second husband, who fancied himself a race car driver, was going fast in the rain on a windy road, when he ran into a tree. He was injured, but I went through the windshield of the Porsche. I had a concussion, a pelvic injury that took a year to heal and one of my front teeth broke off.

A dentist in Cambridge MA where we were living at the time put in a post and glued it. That actually lasted 60 years until last week. We always get apples at an apple orchard when we go to get organic lamb. Always I feel them so that it will be easier to eat them. Always that has been fine. But this year, when I bit into a peeled apple, it was like biting into a stone. It chipped two teeth and broke off my old broken tooth.  All the apples were stone hard and neither of us can eat them raw. I cook them in various ways, which seems a real loss.

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I saw my dentist. She found that the post had broken off deep in my cheek. The old tooth could not be put back. I hid, looking like a troll till three days later, she saw me again. I was in the dentist chair for an hour and 40 minutes while she performed oral surgery. She put in a temporary bridge so I would not look like a child with a missing front tooth.

It is going to take weeks to heal. For the first few days, I had to subsist on yogurt, kefir milk, cold coffee, and ice cream. We figure out after the first couple of days that I could have tapioca pudding safely.  Everything white and except for the ice cream, bland.

I am slowly able to have warm, not hot, liquids and food, but nothing that requires hard chewing. But I was able to  have a real supper last night with real and warm food – swordfish, baked winer squash and a puree of pattypans mildly curried that I froze last summer. It felt wonderful to have real food again. I can eat soft fruit now, like bananas and mangos. I understand it will take five weeks to completely heal so that my dentist can work on a permanent bridge. This has all cut into our social life since I can’t eat normally and don’t want to feed pablum to guests. Nor can I easily go out, neither to a restaurant nor for supper at a friend’s house.

I was able to have my poetry group here Wednesday evening.  That was good and useful. We have a new member and we are going to take in one other.  One poet had to drop out as she has to care for her brother who has rapidly developing Parkinsons and she is the only family member willing and able to take on his care. Another lost her husband suddenly. She comes when she can, but a lot has fallen on her and often she can’t make it.

I’m watching the Brreeder’s Cup races and Woody is watching the world series. I’ve halfway through the new Elizabeth George novel and also half way through a book about a woman’s relationship with a leveret, RAISING HARE.