Adventures in Late Stage Dining!

What in the world are you talking about? What is this so called “late stage dining”? Well, let me tell you a little story …

When I was just a boy, my Mom taught me that everyone had to brush their teeth every day. And for years that is precisely what I have done; I religiously brushed every morning before I went out to face the new day. However, somewhere along the way, I lost sight of the fact that a yearly visit to the local dentist’s office was also a very good thing to do.

And so, on the morning of Good Friday 2006, I found myself in a local dentist’s office having the last eight teeth in my upper jaw plucked right out and my shiny new full upper and partial lower dentures inserted where my real teeth used to be!

Folks, I have to tell you, this is one apparatus that is really going to take some getting used to. I don’t know if it is even something that can be explained to a person who does not share in the experience … but, of course, I am going to try.

First of all, let me give you a little history leading up to last Friday.

In the last seven years I have had some ”issues” with my molars and bicuspids which, in 2004, resulted in my having all of the upper right and lower left molars removed. I also lost the upper right bicuspid in that process. So for quite some time now I have been chewing everything with only my front teeth.

You know how sometimes when certain people are asked to perform more than their fair share of the workload while others are missing in action or just too lazy to pitch in with their own full effort? You know how sometimes those people will just up and quit on you for being asked to do too much with too little for way too long? Well let me tell you … teeth are just as likely to do the same thing when you ask too much of them!

Some months ago my front upper right tooth began to hurt. As the months went by, it also began to get loose. It seems that it finally decided it simply was not going to do the job of being beautiful, like any front tooth should be, while also being tasked with doing the ripping job of my now MIA bicuspids, as well as the grinding job of the also MIA molars. Enough was enough already!

So now I was reduced to chewing everything with the top two and bottom two left side front teeth. And that is where I was six weeks ago when I went to see my NEW dentist. How did I select this particular one, you might ask? It was easy. The sign on the front of his office in the strip center says, simply … DENTURES. Heh heh.

It only took him about one minute of looking into my mouth, and two frames from the old X-ray camera, to arrive at his diagnosis. Full upper plate and a partial lower, salvaging the front eight bottom teeth to be used as anchors for the partial. So we set an appointment for a few days later to get started.

At my first sitting, he removed the rest of my remaining molars and sent me home with eight teeth left across the bottom front, and eight more across the top front. Everything from there back was just a great big swollen gum.

I had two follow-up appointments … one to get the stitches removed and have impressions made, and another to do a preliminary test fitting of the plates as they were being designed. Then, finally, the day came. At 9:00 AM on April 14, 2006 I sat and had all of my remaining upper teeth removed, and then … after a couple of test fittings and some denture grinding and adjustments, I finally had my “late stage dental appliances” installed!

Now then … just how good is your imagination? Because for anyone who does not also wear dentures to even begin to understand what this feels like, you are going to need some imagination!

Before I get started, take a second to really get a feel for just how much room your tongue actually has in that mouth of yours. Sure it’s all cozy in there, but it’s kind of like a bachelor living in a well furnished one bedroom condo. Not too large, but enough space to move around a bit and to be really comfortable. Also take note of just how perfectly sized those gums are around your teeth. If I had not told you to take notice of them, you would never even have thought about them in the first place, right? Okay … with all of this realization fresh in your mind, let me describe my new choppers.

First of all, imagine a hockey puck. Think of that hockey puck only slightly hollowed out on one side and rounded off on the other to resemble the curve of the top of your mouth. Now open wide and put that puck right in there and “stick” it to the top of your mouth. Oh! Before I forget, let me remind you that the reason you have just stuck a puck in your mouth in the first place is so that you will have something resembling teeth with which to chew your food.

That being the case … now you will have to imagine that your newly molded hockey puck also has some protrusions where you used to have teeth. Think of studs lining the outside of your new hockey puck appliance. Now when I say studs, I mean the kind of studs you see in the movies on those collars they always put on Doberman pinschers! But your studs are all placed tightly, side by side.

So there you are, sitting in the chair with your new stud-lined hockey puck, and you are just about ready to pay the man and get out of there. But then your dentist says, “Open just a little bit” … to which you would like reply “And just how am I supposed to do that?!” But, of course, you can’t say that because your mouth is still dead from the Novocain AND you have this hockey puck stuck to the roof of your mouth!

It is at this moment that you remember there is still more hardware to be installed into your rapidly collapsing condo. So with everything that is in you, you wrench your mouth open “just a little more”, as the doctor has requested. And now he sticks your lower plate in and snaps the metal clips onto the two end teeth in the set of eight he has graciously left out of your original thirty-two.

Now remember that you just had a stud-lined hockey puck stuck to the roof of your mouth. To get an idea of the added joy of the lower plate, imagine cutting the handles off of two spoons. First you will have to kind of bend one side of the spoons backward so that they will go over your gums just right, but leave the natural curve of the spoons on the other half. You will also want to cut off a short piece of one of those handles and bend it to match the curve of your eight bottom front teeth. You are going to have to weld that piece of handle to the two spoons to hold them together so that they don't float around in your mouth once inserted. Now simply add a few more of those Doberman pinscher collar studs to each side of your hot new spoon contraption and then stick it right into your mouth such that the spoons route down under the back of your tongue … one on both sides … making your tongue feel as if it is being cradled in a brand new specially built speech impediment simulator!

It is at precisely this moment that your dentist will ask you, “How does that feel?” To which you will instinctively reply, “Good!” Or at least that is what you will TRY to tell him. It will, of course, come out something more like “GOOF” … which perfectly describes your own personal self-evaluation even as you say it. Then he tells you that you are all done. You’re ready to go bravely into the outside world and learn how to talk and eat and smile and live all over again.

“THANNGZZZ” you whistle over the steel spoon handle that now lines the back of your remaining eight lower teeth. “THANNGZZZ A LOTH!” And you’re off!!!

So it’s been two days now, and I have to tell you … I am feeling great. My smile is more beautiful than it has EVER been, and the hockey puck feels like it’s shrinking a bit. Now it feels more like a third spoon, with its handle also cut off, inserted into the top of my mouth. I’m still whistling every time I say an “S” or a soft “C”, but I’m confident that the dentizzzzzt will fixzzzzzz that when I go back in two weeks … heh heh.

Oh yeah … I am also eating again. Just yesterday I motored right through several Vienna sausages like they were pudding!! Okay … I admit they are not much tougher than pudding in the first place … but I did motor right through them, okay?! I also found that, when the dentures are making my mouth a little sore, I can rip open a can of Underwood Deviled Ham to satisfy my late stage dental dining requirements. You know? That stuff is already chewed for you! You just stick a spoonful in your mouth, swish it around between the three studded spoons that are in there with it, and then swallow. Just try to be sure you are only swallowing HAM!!!