In four months, I’ve had an emergency appendectomy, ectropion (lower eyelids causing extreme dry eyes) surgery and a tooth pulled. Before that only one surgery in many many years for a broken elbow. Nothing very serious among these incidents and all dealt with appropriately by the doctors and dentist. The only downside, other than fairly brief discomfort and a somewhat depleted bank account, was having to be in an actual hospital in the appendix case. Wow, if my organization functioned as haphazardly, redundantly and expensively as the hospital I visited, we would have closed down long ago. But they didn’t kill me for which I am grateful.

Today was the unexpected tooth pulling. I find myself a fan of the art of dentistry in general and my dentist, Dr. Tom Baiamonte, in particular. You can call and, even without it being a dire emergency, your dentist will see you very soon. You will get to talk to him for as long as you feel the need and then the appropriate action will be taken. And—try to imagine this with a doctor—your dentist will give you his cell phone number in case there is a problem over the weekend. Honestly! All for a relatively reasonable fee. Of course there’s a small downside called the Novocain needles and the drill but that passes fairly quickly. And the dental office never ever charges you hundreds/thousands of dollars an hour for having walked through the front door, used the bathroom, and taken four aspirin like the aforementioned hospital.

I am a little sad though; I celebrated the broken elbow incident with a couple days of ice cream and pain pills which kept me in a pleasantly dreamy state. But now with three physical interventions in such a short period of time, I find I’m tired of both the ice cream and the pills. So I’ll do it this evening but henceforth I am switching to Acorn Squash Soup and a Bloody Mary. Or Gazpacho and Bailey’s Irish Cream. Or Cheese Whiz and Bud.