Tooth Truth

Did you ever consider that some of the everyday errands you run could be envied by somebody else?

Last week I while I sat waiting for my name to be called at the dentist’s office for a routine cleaning and exam, I witnessed a scene that I haven’t been able to shake from my mind.

A woman came in and quietly asked the receptionist if they were accepting new patients.  Yes, they were.  Her next question  concerned the type of dental insurance the office accepted.  No, they didn’t accept her insurance.

“How much does it cost to get an exam and cleaning? ” the woman asked.  The receptionist answered that the charges for the initial visit were almost $400.

Visibly disappointed, the woman said she would need to check to see who carried her insurance because she really needed to see a dentist, she’d lost a tooth the previous week and others were loose.  Although the receptionist was kind and compassionate to the woman, she didn’t have a solution to the woman’s problem. With her head low,  she left.

I have been blessed with regular dental care my entire life, even in the years when there was no such thing as dental insurance.  It was a sacrifice for my parents to provide me with the care I needed, but it was a priority for them and they found the resources to make it happen.  As a result, except for #31, I still have all my own teeth.  And, while I realized long ago that others have not been so fortunate, I’ve rarely witnessed the yearning for healthy teeth first hand.

Here in rural Virginia, it is not uncommon to run into folks with teeth missing, not in the back, like my #31, but right up front for all the world to see, or to see middle-aged adults with no teeth at all.

As a child, I lived for more than  three years with a gap where my right front incisor should have been.  Family photos reflect years of me smiling with my lips tight.  Because of this I’m very sensitive to the feelings of people with missing teeth.  I felt like the ugly duckling and it affected my self-esteem for a long time.

Let’s face it, our culture takes great liberty at the expense of  people with missing and crooked teeth, equating them with ignorance, lack of good hygiene and labeling them as lower class.  It’s part of the cultural lexicon, the hillbilly with the random teeth, or the mentally challenged with the crooked or buck teeth.  I’m no expert, but I would be willing to bet that most folks, given the financial opportunity, would choose to have a full set of straight pearly whites.

In a perfect world, everyone would have access.  But, the world is far from perfect and I’m not advocating that we should institute universal dental coverage.  What I am suggesting is that when you see someone with a tooth or two missing, don’t be so quick to judge them and if you are able to pay for regular dental care, don’t take it for granted.

If you have dental insurance or can afford the cost out-of-pocket, you are one of the lucky ones.  For what ever reason, God has chosen you to be one of the ones who are gifted with this.  The fact that someone else has not, is not a punishment, it simply is.

So that was my epiphany in the waiting room at the dentist’s.  I could have spent the time mindlessly playing a word game on my phone, but instead spent some time with Spirit.  After she left, I said a prayer for the woman that she gets what she needs because I certainly received a reality check I needed.