Yet another reminder of our own eventual demise

[shalanna]

Our dentist is dead!

We found out in a roundabout way. Yesterday in the mail there came a trifolded wad of paper from some unknown dental office. I would usually just have thrown it away as "spam," but my mother was the one sorting the mail (we call this "felony appropriation of someone else's first class mail"), and she noticed that there were two of these missives, one to her and one to hubby. (Our dental office stopped acknowledging that hubby and I are two different people some time ago, which amused me until now, when I wonder whether our dental records are mixed up or trashed the way the billing records always were.)

So she tore the tape off of one of the copies and started reading it around midnight last night. (I never said we did business during the day here at Casa del Weirdos.) "This is really odd," she called from her lair to me in the kitchen (as I loaded the dishwasher and tried to figure out what that stuff was that just wouldn't come off the hand-painted dessert plates, because it couldn't be any kind of dessert--oh, it's THAT stuff.) "Come read this."

The letter started out by saying how appreciative the dentist's family was for all the support over the past few months . . . uh-oh . . . and went on to say that this wonderful new woman would be taking his practice. It never said exactly what happened, but I knew. The signature was "Mrs. Dentist's Name," not "both of us" or whatnot. Mama wanted to believe he had just quit, but I knew better.

I came back here and Googled around, but didn't find a thing until I searched the Dallas News obit archives. It would only give me the first two lines of the obit unless I paid $2.50, but that was enough. His name, age (three years younger than me! Aaughh!), and the publication date--October of last YEAR. WTF?!

Now I understand why I never got any more of those little "Come In For A Cleaning" cards. I hadn't really thought about it until now.

We did drive by the office a couple of times over the past few months, and had noted that no one was there, but rationalized that it must be a day they'd taken off (his children are still fairly young, and he closed in the afternoon sometimes to do events with them.) Yet I hadn't really thought about THIS.

I don't like the little spiel of the person who has bought the practice, and I don't like the idea that I will be forced to go to this person just by default. However . . . even as I am calling around to friends to see who they are going to these days . . . I'm a bit concerned.

How did we start with this guy fifteen years ago? Well, when *he* graduated from school, he bought the practice of our retiring dentist, the beloved Dean L. Soderberg. Dr. Soderberg was a neighbor of ours as well. When he learned that my dad, who had just had his first heart attack, could not get anyone to work on his teeth (this was the late 1960s and heart patients were treated/seen completely differently--many dentists didn't want to work on them and some doctors wouldn't look at them either--trust me on this), he said, "Come on down to the office and I'll take a look. I'm not afraid of you." He also took me on, at age eight. I had been traumatized by a children's dentist whose tactic was, whenever the child was afraid, to pinch the child's cheeks and jaw and sometimes hold the nostrils closed and other stuff that was apparently what they were teaching them in dental school in those days, and I wasn't too thrilled about getting looked at. But Dr. Soderberg was different. My dental records from age eight and baby teeth all the way through age eleven and Crozat appliances (to make room) and age fifteen and braces . . . all the way up until he retired . . . they're all there. Unless this other guy's office lost them or conflated them with hubby's or something.

Yet a person needs to have his or her own dental records. There's some kind of law that says you can have them and that they aren't supposed to trash them. So I ought to be able to go over there and demand them, even if I don't have a new dentist yet, right? And of course Mama's are there, too, and her records from being with Dr. Soderberg should still be there on microfiche or whatnot; she was 32 when she started going to him.

I know you're gonna tell me that I ought to give this new person a chance, but I don't wanna be railroaded. I don't like the writeup. I just . . . wanna see who my friends are using.

This guy, the dentist who has now left us, was a really nice and versatile person. He put up with our claustrophobia and neuroses (sometimes we just needed him to back away for a moment . . . we think that's because of trauma from our time in the ICU, immobilized) and was always upbeat. We're gonna miss him.

Mama already had a crying fit over it. "He was such a nice big ol' redneck guy, a native Texan, and loved his sons so much! I trusted him. Remember when he fixed my front tooth? And Dr. Soderberg hand-chose him to take over his patients."

We'll have to ask around and check out the new people. Still, I dread having to call and ask for my dental records, even if there's a fee . . . I don't mind the fee, just the sales pressure I feel I'll encounter. They kept the same staff, which is a downer; that awful receptionist/billing woman is the major reason that I hadn't called or tried to get in for a cleaning in the first place. She was always so awful to me. And the new dentist kept her. *sigh* Dragon Lady vs the patients.

*putting on flameproof armor*

(useful stuff to have . . . I got mine on the 'net)

Comments

[goingdriftless.livejournal.com]

You can request medical records in writing. Just mail or fax a letter stating your name, a client # if you have it, and say you want your records copied and mailed to you at whatever address. Tell them to bill you for any related charges. And sign it. They just need your signature... And what with all the HIPPA stuff, you should be able to get them just fine.

I had to request records from about 8 docs last winter when I started seeing my magic doc who promises we will fix it all...

I'm a pro at dropping doctors. There should be no need for you to go to the office. Believe me... there are plenty of docs whose offices I will never set foot in again.

[goingdriftless.livejournal.com]

btw... You probably figured it out... but if you want all of your records, all 3 of you will need to sign for them.

[catrambo.livejournal.com]

That's so weird. Ours died a couple of years ago in a hit and run accident, but we really, really lucked out with the new dentist, who despite the fact that she looks like she's about 13 is personable, nice, and extraordinarily competent. And who sings to herself while she's working on your mouth, which is just too cute for words.

I have found with Dragon Ladies that simply repeating what you want over and over again in a firm but pleasant voice works best. The third time you repeat yourself is about where they realize what you're doing and that you intend to keep doing it as long as necessary. They all seem to cave at that point.

[ladyjaguar.livejournal.com]

I found out that my rheumatologist died a couple years ago in a more roundabout way. I had had increasing pain and went to see my primary care doctor first, and asked him if I should go to Dr. P---. My primary said, "He died a few months ago." It was a shock. He was a few years younger than I am. He had been sick, but I didn't know it was serious.

What a shock. He was one of the best in the city.