‘Tell your friend ..’
By Paul Mantee/Special to The Malibu Times
I expect my doctors to disagree. In fact, I cherish the phenomenon. If I happen to mention to Doctor A that I swallow my morning vitamins with V-8 Juice and a dash of Worcestershire, he doesn’t bat an eye. If I make the same statement to Doctor B, he looks at me as if I’ve ingested Clorox for breakfast. Doctor C encourages a couple of drinks an evening, whereas Doctor D would be thrilled if I chose bottled water over the rocks as a cocktail option. I see their differences as beneficial to me in the sense that if I go on living the tastiest life I’m capable of, I will only disappoint half my health advisors. Further, for me to suggest that one check with the other in the interest of consistency would be gastronomic suicide. I don’t want my doctors consulting one another behind my back.
Except where my teeth are concerned.
It seems like only yesterday I could bite into whatever felt good in my mouth. A thick juicy New York-cut steak comes to mind. A forkful of which I dare not stick in there for at least a year. Till my implants are screwed into pre-drilled holes and eventually become as one with my upper gum bone. Which my dentist assures me is about as durable as balsa wood. I blame this bad news/worse news diagnosis primarily on my slice of the gene pool. And also on the fact that nothing puts the damper on a romantic interlude like late-night flossing. So you pay. Wishy-washy gums. Soup is fine.
Research into the practicality of dental implants requires the teamwork of a dentist and a periodontist. Fortunately, I’ve got two top-notch professionals working to put my mouth where my money is. Unfortunately, they don’t like each other. No. That’s too strong an assessment. It irks them to acknowledge one another’s existence on the planet is more like it. My wonderful dentist who practices in Malibu and my wonderful periodontist who practices in the Valley will go to extreme lengths not to communicate with one another on behalf of my disappearing mouth.
Each refers to the other as “your friend.”
Picture me in alternating chairs with a mouthful of hardware.
“Tell your friend I don’t know why he hasn’t crowned number twelve.”
“Tell your friend it’s hardly urgent.”
“Tell your friend it should have been done a month ago. “
“Tell your friend he needs to extract number eight.”
And I toodle off like some confused child, trying to remember which is eight and which is twelve, whether to count from my upper or lower, left or right … or does the count begin from the doctor’s point of view? And do these two strangers have the same point of view in the first place? Maybe their numbering systems are designed to confuse one another. And I wind up relaying useless and vaguely tattletale information I don’t begin to comprehend to one parent and then the other, ultimately strengthening their resolve to ignore each other. I’ve done a lot of running around on behalf of these two.
The coup d’grace, of course, is the off-handed comment that drains every ounce of energy from my body as I walk out of either office, because it signifies the end of my reconstruction process. “Tell your friend to call me.”
“Your friend refuses to return my call.”
“Doesn’t your friend ever pick up his messages?”
Fire them, you say. Extract them both and seek assistance from men of the industry who golf together. Well, I can’t do that. I have a rich history with these guys. Each one has an intimate relationship with every pocket of decay in my face. Often times on a weekend when something temporary falls out of my mouth into the toilet or when I crack a shaky bridge on … whatever … a piece of toast and the Super Glue just doesn’t get it done … my Malibu dentist will forego an hour of playtime with his first born and simply say, “Come in now!” That’s the beauty of living in the neighborhood. “Come in now!” is a three-minute proposition. And in the same spirit of dedication, my Valley periodontist and I frequently have lunch together – something soft – and share a chuckle over the fact that my file is the thickest one in his practice. It’s never merely a case of “open up, let’s see what we have here.” These guys are perfectly aware of what we have here. Very little. Wouldn’t you think the challenge might bring these two men of science enthusiastically together in common cause?
I have a dream.
Remember the encounter groups of the 1970s, where strangers were herded into a room and encouraged to sit across from one another for an entire weekend for the purpose of active listening and meaningful dialogue? I see my two friends hunkered on fluffy pillows, facing one another in close proximity. No little masks, no rubber gloves. Faces open, perfect smiles benign, defenses out the window. From a third pillow, a respectful distance apart, I lead them through a meditation whose mechanics include a letting go of preconceptions and an acceptance of the innate brotherhood of tooth and gum through the white light of the moment. They have never been more ready to share feelings, diagnoses, methodology and who knows what? For this is Camp Relationship. They hold hands only because they have an irresistible impulse to do so.