The Travails of Toothless Ed

At first, unbearable pain sent me to a dentist in Berlin, Dr. Basic. Which is how the friends who took me there pronounced his name, like basic training or something. But when he talked, it was obvious that he was from Eastern Europe and his name was really pronounced BAH-sitch. His office was scary. So was what he said to me.

"There will be danger. There must be danger." I didn't like the sound of that. I stayed just long enough to ascertain that it was his accent. The word was "dentures."

But, at that time, there would be no danger, and no dentures. There was no money, and even scary Eastern European dentists in bad neighborhoods in Berlin have to get money for their services.

Then the pain got worse. Somehow I was referred to another dentist, an Australian in a somewhat better neighborhood. It was between him and an Orthodox Jewish woman in a really bad neighborhood -- hell, I used to live there -- who'd gone to the same dental school as my maternal grandfather (just joking about the bad neighborhood, folks). What they all had in common was that they spoke English, something I require for overseas medical problems whenever possible.

The Australian's was the highest-tech dentist's office I'd ever seen. We did X-rays and I handed him my Röntgen-Karte, a government document that keeps track of how much radiation you've absorbed. He looked at the results. "See this here?" he said, noting some white clouds where my gums were. "That's pus, and it could go any minute, into your bloodstream, into your heart or your brain and bingo! You're dead!" The solution, it appeared, was to get rid of the rotten teeth that were causing it to exist. He gave me a quote. Okay, let's do it.

There are neighborhoods in Berlin that go on and on and contain nothing edifying. Kebab stands, hairdressers, bars, dentist's offices. That's where he was, a subway ride with transfer and another transfer to a bus. No particular landmarks. Just undifferentiated ugliness, with him somewhere in it. He'd given me a prescription for some kind of antibiotic to clear up some of the infection, which meant that on my first date with the woman who was to become known as Lady Drunkula, I had to abstain. (You know the type: only drinks white wine because you can't be an alcoholic if you only drink white wine, right?) So when that was over, I made my way back to his office, my pockets stuffed with €50 notes. It was time.

He prepared a couple of needles. "This," he told me, "is a great anaesthetic. Developed in Finland. You Yanks can't get it. FDA hasn't approved it. Fools." But it was. Seconds later, my entire head was numb, but I was perfectly conscious. "Right," said the doctor. "Let's see the money." That was rather abrupt, but I pulled it out of my pocket and he snatched it from me. He snapped each bill from the roll, loudly, and held it up to the light. Then he did it again. And a third time. He handed two of them back to me. "Here. A discount for cash." And without changing his rubber gloves, he got to work. It was amazing.

Close your fist around a finger. Pull the finger out. That's what it felt like. Seven? Eight? I don't know how many teeth he pulled. Once I felt a twinge of pain. But just a twinge. The teeth were gone. Then I chomped down on some goo. "You'll have to do without your teeth for a couple of days, but we'll have your bridge ready by the end of the week, so I'll make you an appointment and you can come in and we'll get you straight." So I left, numb head and all, waited for the bus, got on, made my transfers and soon enough I was home. A couple of days later, I went in, he looped some metal around two of my molars, and there were my falsies. We shook hands and I was out the door.

Over the weekend, they snapped in two. I called him on Monday. "Get in here," he growled. He was livid. Unbelievably angry. He took the bridge, disappeared for a while and came back. "Here, this'll work. I don't want to see you here again." Fair enough: this one held except for one tooth that snapped out. I could deal with that. I was more concerned with my growing relationship with Lady Drunkula, anyway. She lived right around the corner. "Plastic teeth," I warned her before the first time we kissed. "Aaaah, I've dated older men before. C'mere."

The teeth worked out far better than the relationship. At least they hung around and never tried to kill me. About six months later, I got a postcard with Garfield on it. It was from the Australian's partner, Dr. Schreck. (This was another thing that gave me pause about him: Schreck means horror in German. The star of the incredibly creepy 1921 German vampire film Nosferatu was Max Schreck, which I'd always figured was a made-up name to capitalize on his role in the film, but it was apparently his real name!) It reminded me it was time for my checkup, which I didn't remember having been told about, and a subsequent check revealed that the Australian had vanished utterly.

The teeth and I got along well for the next few years, but I knew there was more disease to deal with. I had other things on my mind, though, not least of which was leaving Germany for France. Of course, as this blog has documented, not long after I got there, I lost my sense of taste and smell to some sinus polyps, brilliantly diagnosed and treated (although it took a year to get back to normal) by the great Dr. Jean-Claude Marrache. In 2013, though, I had a recurrence and went back to see him. He wrote a prescription, said "I guarantee you'll be back to normal in 48 hours" (it turned out to be more like four), and, when I asked him if there were any relationship between the gum infection and my problem he paused a moment and then said "Duh." He sat down and wrote a name and an address on a scrap of paper. "This guy's office is literally around the corner from you, and he's a friend of mine. Every year he goes to America and rides a Harley down Route 66, so I assume he speaks English."

But I'd already decided to move back. A couple of years ago, unfortunately, both of the molars anchoring the bridge had fallen out, so I had to be careful eating. Then two upper teeth began to hurt and push themelves out. I looked awful. Then I moved and one day one of the uppers fell out at my desk. The next morning, the other fell into my orange juice with a pretty clink as it hit the glass. I now looked like someone's meth-addicted hillbilly cousin.

This was me on Sunday. I had an appointment on Monday. Just in time: I had another tooth threatening to leave, I had only two teeth to chew with, and I was a mess. I had been to see Dr. Shane Matt and his crew,  bit down on some allegedly blueberry-flavored gunk several times and waited over a month for some dentures to be made. I was about to lose every tooth in my head, and I was glad.

I won't pretend it was fun. It was worse than the Berlin experience because some of the teeth really, really didn't want to come. A couple shattered. And when it was over, they slapped some dentures on me. A friend came and drove me to Costco to buy the antibiotics and pain-pills I'd been prescribed, and I was drooling blood all the way. Naturally, they didn't have the pills ready, so I wandered over to Whole Foods next door to see what was available in terms of bottled smoothies. Some good stuff, actually. A company with the unpromising name of Bolthouse Farms makes interesting combinations, like the breakfast smoothie I had this morning. A company named Evolution Fresh makes a delicious product called Protein Power that I bought despite the note from the founder, one Jimmy, on the side which says, in part, "You deserve to drink something you feel good about, because it makes you feel good." Nobody who puts something that stupid on packages of his product deserves to get rich.

Yes, I'm drinking three meals a day, dammit. (Please spare me the jokes.) My gums are swollen, the teeth don't fit quite right, and more importantly they don't meet right, which means I can't chew. Biting, too, isn't going to happen for a while because of tenderness. It pisses me off: the refrigerator is filled with leftovers of Indian, Chinese, and Italian food I'm going to have to throw out because no way I'll ever get to them in time. But I keep telling myself I'll be able to eat stuff I haven't been able to eat in years -- this story began over ten years ago, after all -- and that's going to make a difference. And hell, I might just be losing weight with all these damn smoothies and stuff.

But although I'm not any prettier, I do know I'm already healthier: all my nose issues have started clearing up ("Duh" -- thanks, Dr. Marrache) and my digestion will improve once I can chew thoroughly again.

Definitely no prettier

I appreciate having friends close enough by that they haven't minded taking me to the dentist's office and shopping for liquid food, and once I'm cooking real food again, they'll be glad they did. As for me, I gotta go slosh some saline solution around my mouth again and take another antibiotic.