The Streets Aren't Paved In Gold

Well it’s been a long day. Two and a half hours at the dentist: she is open for business with strict covid protocols, starting with a locked front door. You are not allowed in without a mask, a completed health questionnaire, and taking your temperature. Clients are limited. You wait in your car instead of the waiting room. Staff is double masked and wearing hair coverings as well. I was being measured for my implant, and it is not what I remember from the past, from getting a crown. There is no sticky gel mold to be made; everything is digital. The doctor has a device that looks kind of like a radar gun, which gets shoved in your mouth and manipulated until a full 3-D image of your teeth appears on the screen. There are many photos with samples of tooth color. Because it’s a frontish tooth there is a lot of care being demonstrated to get it right. So, no pain, no complaints, but after an hour and a half I was still pretty stressed just from being there. I think it was the longest I’d been away from home in several months. Then I got to choose whether or not to have my fillings done. Oh well, in for a penny, I got two out of three.