The pink lozenge revisited...

So I'm lying there on a huge vivid pink lozenge, its just after 9am and I'm totally relaxed but I can't feel my mouth and I'm sure its three times bigger than it normally is. I'm staring straight up at the ceiling at a huge bright light feeling just like a rabbit in car headlights when suddenly this huge face appears above me, staring down into my eyes and a soft voice asks "could you bite down on this please"

No, I havent been smoking those "funny" cigarettes again and no I haven't overdosed on my well worn copy of Sgt Peppers again , I'm at the dentist - again.

I show him the crown that he fitted temporarily two weeks ago, the fact that its in my hand instead of in my mouth suggests that the glue didn't work too well and he nods in his gentle way and ignores the issue, today I'm here for the root to be filled permenantly and then decide what sort of new crown I'll have the pleasure of financing.

The filling goes fine, I lie there in a stupor staring at his light fitting while he does his stuff using gallons of water to clean out the drilled out root, he cuts my gum back and I can't feel a thing, I haven't felt anything in the last half hour but the real pain is yet to come, the pain in my wallet.

The work for today is finished, the root filling completed and I sit up in the pink lozenge as he explains what the next session will bring - he is going to fit a new carbon fibre post into the root which will apparently bond much better than the old titanium one that had a life span of "lifetime" when it was fitted, which converted quickly to just three years. Apparently they use much stronger glue with the carbon fibre ones, I hope so.

On top of that he will then fit a brand new tooth made from porcelain in his very own studio, it all sound just whoopee-doo until he explains that the tooth will cost £520, its either this or the pirate look and the gap-toothed pirate look isn't too good.

So its another £95 for yesterdays session and another appointment in two weeks time and another temporary crown in place held in with not-so-strong glue so I have to be careful eating on it, and I'm left wondering again, whatever happened to the National Health Service ?