January is the month where I am finally undergoing some long-neglected dental care.
For those of you who aren’t American — for Reasons ™, dental care isn’t considered part of your health insurance. You have to have separate dental insurance, which doesn’t cover nearly as much of the cost. For this reason, my wife Laura and I bitterly joke and refer to teeth as “Luxury Mouth Bones.” Taking care of your teeth COSTS.
I’ve already had some work done today, and at the end of the month I’ll be getting an extensive amount done (partial dentures, in fact), which will hopefully cover me for some time. And, because I’m over 50, I’m *also* scheduled for a colonoscopy late in the month.
I don’t like having this much work done — my wallet definitely doesn’t like it, and in the case of the dental stuff, it butts up against some pretty hard-wired phobias of mine — but over the past year I’ve seen colleagues suffer strokes and heart attacks, and I know that the route to better health passes through these medical adventures, so I’ll suck it up.
This probably qualifies as TMI, but I’m laying it all out on the table here, in the hopes that somebody will read it and make the decision to take batter care of themselves. The costs and aggravation and anxiety are a pain in the ass, sure, but the results are better than the alternative.