Dentisht.

First thing this morning saw me at the dentist having 2 crowns removed from a couple of molars. Being one of the poor masses I have to go to the National Health dentist where the treatment is often not as good as paying to go private. Regular readers will recall last year's fight to get NHS treatment for a root canal filling (not being prepared to pay £1000 for private treatment), and the eventual loss of the tooth due to long waiting lists. Today's treatment was due to the fact that in the 20 years since the crowns were fitted my gums have receded a bit and the teeth were becoming sensitive (one also had some decay underneath), and will cost me £250. I now have to wait over 2 weeks for the new crowns and have, I discovered no ability to chew as the dentist just left the stumps. That sounds awful but it is all at the back. I'm sure I can nibble on some chocolate & cream cakes to keep up my energy levels. I'm not a fan of our NHS dental service, thank goodness ordinary medical treatment is completely different. The NHS used by 95% of the population is not excellent and there are some restrictions on treatments and waiting lists but the one thing you can be assured is that you will never have to pay for treatment. You do have to pay £7 for each prescription unless you are under 16, in full-time education, over 60, pregnant or on government benefits. I read with horror of people in America having to enormous amounts of money and fight insurance companies who seem to want to pay for as little as possible. The last thing you want when you are ill is to have to worry about paying for treatment. How much I wonder would all my recent treatment for my back, months of physiotherapy, MRI scan, x-rays, & surgery, have cost? I might not be too happy with our local hospital who have been known to make mistakes but at least everybody gets the same treatment.

This afternoon I was back at work, the injections at the dentist had made my mouth go numb and it was rather challenging to teach a phonics lesson first thing. Straight after the dentist I had met one of my mums in the supermarket and all I could do was point to my mouth and mumble 'dentisht'. Because we stream the children from 2 classes I couldn't even rearrange the phonics for later in the afternoon. It was quite a relief when I realised the injections had worn off and I was able to talk normally. I stayed on after school to go through the children's ability and effort levels for short half-year reports as I had been their teacher last term. I'm not back at school until Tuesday morning. It has been raining for the past few days but the forecast is for sunshine tomorrow morning so I'll be out there tackling the weeds once more.