The Donkey Quest

Hee-haw, Hee-haw...The Donkey Quest! That is what our son Gabe called it when he heard I was looking for a dentist down here. He explained that it was a reference to the way Mexican dentists are depicted in cartoons, awakening vague and nearly forgotten memories for me and initiating some much needed comic relief! I wouldn't write about all this, except that I feel badly for our friends and family in Montana, with yet more snow! So here is a post to let you know not all is fun and games down here.

Once upon a time.....a couple of years ago my dentists ganged up on me (an intervention, perhaps?) telling me about a big problem I had developing in my mouth. When I learned exactly how imminent and expensive this would be, I took out a supplemental dental insurance policy. The policy, however, included a two year waiting period before they would pay anything toward any major dental work. I gave my dentists no choice but to work with me on this until April of this year. They agreed to continue a temporary fix my original and now retired dentist had started over 10 years ago. Basically, my lower front teeth are glued together in what is called a natural tooth bridge. Mine, however, is very unstable and one tooth in particular is so loose that it occasionally wiggles enough to break its bond with its mate and I have to go in and have another glob of glue added to the now coffee-stained mess of glue blobs on my lower teeth. Past experience with this tenuous bridge has taught me that when one tooth rcomes loose, it is way simpler to get it re-glued right away instead of ignoring it and wishing the whole problem would just go away. I have just written an explanation for you in layman's terms. At the last fix my dentist did, I asked him to put it in dentist language for me so that if I were traveling and this happened I would know what to say to a new dentist. He kindly wrote it out for me, explaining that most any dentist should be able to glue me back together again. I asked him, "What if the dentist were in Mexico?" i wondered if anyone in Mexico would even know who Humpty Dumpty was. My dentist got a little uneasy then and expressed his concerns about the hygiene in Mexico. I left his office hoping like heck the last fix would last until we got home.

And it didn't. Now, we've all heard tales of how much cheaper dental work is down here than in the states, so I started asking around about a dentist and got a couple of recommendations right in Todos Santos (a 10 minute bus ride north of here, once the bus shows up). A friend with a phone tried several times to reach a recommended dentist and set up an appointment, but no one there ever answered the phone. It seemed the only thing to do would be to go there in person. The kink in the plan was the distance of the office from the bus station, especially if we didn't know if anyone would be there. And, as the days rolled along, the situation in my mouth was worsening. I opted to visit the Mexican clinic near the bus station where there was another recommended dentist.

What a trip that was! Just inside the front door of the clinic there was a little office with a plexi-glass window separating the folks inside from the general public. There was a little talkie hole about mouth height and a little opening on the bottom big enough to slide a passport or money through. It was similar to what we have in the police dispatcher station in Livingston. Here, the people in the office do not speak any English, nor are they accustomed to explaining things slowly to clueless tourists. They said a lot of things to me very rapidly. The only part I clearly understood was that I was to come back in two hours.

Bruce and I passed the time snooping around the tourist shops of Todos Santos. Bruce kept asking me if I saw any jewelry I liked, which was my clue he wanted to buy me something and make me feel better about our predicament. I couldn't settle my mind enough to look at jewelry. In one shop we met a cute young tequila salesman who taught us some things about tequila. This young man spoke quite a bit of English and apparently wanted to practice as he kept us engaged. Soon he was telling us a funny story about how he became captivated by a game of chance on the malecon of La Paz during Carnaval. He was so sure he had the game figured out, but he lost everything, even the money he had saved to buy an enchilada. He shook his head remembering how foolish he'd felt, saying the only good thing that happened to him that day was a girl he met. They are still friends today, two years later.

When I got back to the clinic they asked for my passport and $10. After much paging through my passport and much frowning and officious stamping of little pieces of paper, they passed back my passport and a little scrap of paper upon which they had written "ficha 1." Then they gave more rapid fire instructions. When they stopped talking and looked expectantly at me I repeated the only thing I could understand, "You want me to go through this door?" They waved and nodded, saying, "Si, Si. Pasale!" After passing through the door I found a couple of nurses behind a counter who ignored me until I flashed my little magical piece of paper. I was clearly the only lost gringo in the place and they immediately began weighing this strange specimen and taking my blood pressure. I was told to go down the hall to the fourth door, and was beginning to understand how Alice felt when she went down that rabbit hole. I opened the fourth door and walked right in on a young Mexican family talking to the dentist! Back out in the hallway I felt a sudden urge to quickly improve my Spanish. I began reading every poster in the place, picking out new vocabulary and using the graphics to help me translate. After studying every poster and coming up with multiple translations for each, I sat down and tried to act like a normal patient. Bruce had not been allowed past the portal of entry. I had told him that at home it was a simple one half hour fix. I'd already been in the rabbit hole a good half hour and other than interrupting the young family, I hadn't even talked to a dentist! When the young family finally finished, I headed toward the door and a Mexican man tried to ace me out, but hey, that magic piece of paper got me in ahead of him.

The young female dentist also spoke no English. I carefully told her the phrases I had translated (using the mysterious google translator) and memorized from my dentist's note. She took a look, then with her index finger wagging from side to side next to her face told me no, no, glue would no longer work, I needed something stronger, I needed porecelain. She could not do it here at the clinic, but could tell me where to go to get it done. This dentist, however was much further away than the one who didn't answer her phone and I would need an appointment, but could get one in the next two days. Ugh.

Bruce meanwhile, had found another dentist on the internet in Todos Santos within walking distance. Off we went. Yes they could do porcelain here, but not until tomorrow. I made an appointment that would accommodate the bus's unpredictable schedule and we headed back to Pescadero. That evening Gabe's e-mail arrived and gave me a much needed hearty laugh! Thank you, Gabe!

The next morning marked our third day in a row of walking to town instead of to the beach. Lessening our pain, a kind neighbor offered us a ride all the way into Todos Santos. We arrived early at the dentist's office, and our luck had changed,he could take me early. After hearing my rehearsed speech and looking in my mouth, he felt the need to take an x-ray before continuing. I was back in 1962 holding the cardboard negative in place with my finger, no lead apron or any of that. He developed it himself and came back looking like the bearer of bad news. He showed me the x-ray and explained that the one tooth would have to come out. My mind was reeling! How could things have deteriorated so quickly? Remembering my dentist's concern about Mexico, I felt like I just couldn't have a tooth extracted down here, no matter what! (Was this where those images of dentists as donkeys came from? I pictured a cartoon donkey placing a kick in the appropriate spot and the offending tooth popping out). Then the light came on in my little culturally bound little pea brain. Both of these professional dentists were diagnosing my Big Problem! They didn't realize I needed/wanted a temporary fix. Once I figured that out, I could adequately explain my situation. Fortunately this dentist spoke a little English, so that made things easier. Once he understood my situation, he took another look and said, "I am just going to clean this up a bit and then I will fix the broken part, ok?"

He worked a good long while on my teeth and I was beginning to wonder exactly what was he was doing when I'd been in the chair over an hour. Finally he handed me a mirror and ...... I couldn't believe what I saw. All the ugly coffee-stained globs of glue had been scrubbed clean and white, filed down and new glue applied over the top. Then he had shaped the glue to look exactly like my teeth. I could barely see that they had been glued. "It is beautiful!" I couldn't help exclaiming out loud. "Yes," he said, "In Mexico we do beautiful work." I felt like my donkey had just turned into my fairy godfather!

And then his assistant gave me the bill. At $200 it wasn't any cheaper than it would have been stateside. Maybe I got "the gringo price," or maybe as Bruce said, "They saw me coming." I prefer my friend's explanation that the price of dental work down here has recently gone up. At any rate, if it lasts until April I will be a very happy camper. I had to tell Bruce that the jewelry he had wanted to buy me in Todos Santos had turned into the beautiful pearls now in my lower jaw. And my donkey quest is now complete (I hope). And aren't you glad to be skiing or shoveling a walk rather than going on a donkey quest?