Life's a Stitch

Do:

– go to Algodones for dental work, but make sure you know the name of the dentist that will actually do the work. Check out his/her credentials in advance. My daughter saw a dentist in Cancun, claiming to have attended the University of Michigan and having an affiliation with the ADA. A check online proved both claims to be true and her work was successful.  

– expect pushback from those who think that dental/medical care in another country is an unaccceptible concept. One woman I talked to told me of a friend whose US dentist refused to talk to her again after discovering she had been to Algodones for work. B's work was checked afterwards by an American dentist: the cleaning and four of the crowns were fine. One wasn't acceptible and one required just two seconds of further adjusting. Dental tourism definitely leads to interesting discussions.

Don't worry, those are temporaries, and one has a hole with a story behind it. 

– be aware of the time zones. Los Algodones is on Pacific time, the dentists operate on Arizona time, an hour later, as most of their patients are snowbirds residing in AZ. Here's the complicated part. Most people park on the US side, in a lot owned by the nearby casino located in California, and walk over the border (as rental cars don't come with Mexican insurance),  but is on AZ time. So the lesson learned, is that if you park in the overnight lot, and you are told to move your car by 9:00am, they mean 8:00 am, otherwise you are leaving parking lot at 10:00am and will be expected to pay for another day.  My experience ended with an altercation with a not so understanding sheriff from the reservation. Are you confused? So were we. You've been warned. 

– pay attention to pricing for optometry. I require special lenses a version of which were available, but took 11 days to process, with prices comparable to those in Canada. I elected to shop for frames instead, intending to buy the lenses at home. Upon checking online, the frames were less expensive via mail order.

– eat tacos at Molcas', where "if you don't like the food you don't pay." We were there on multiple occasions and ate beef, goat, pork, fish, shrimp and chicken tacos. Two tacos each, one margarita for the boy and a Diet Coke for me – $12. 

– stay in Yuma or the Hacienda in Algodones. We did both: two nights at the Best Western in Yuma, very reasonable and included breakfast and two beers or glasses of wine at happy hour each night and three at the Hacienda – clean and comfortable and lots of people with whom to commiserate, all sailing in the same dental boat.

– plan on time off from the dentist, difficult when it is impossible to know how long you will be at the clinic. We went to the Yuma Regional Center for a  10:45am movie matinee, at a cushy theater$5/seniors and $6.50 for adults. 

Painting is my stress relief these days. Thank goodness my surgery was on my left hand:

 Don't:

– go to a large clinic that can't tell you who your specific dentist will be. The clinic we attended employed 30 dentists. The clinic's marketing advertised all the right credentials, but your chances of beign assigned to one of the practitioners advertised are not guaranteed.

 - schedule an appointment during the December/January holidays. We ended up driving down and back twice as, although we were told coming on December 22nd would allow sufficient time for work and lab time, it didn't work out that way. Also the dentists working in Algodones, may actually live 10-15 hours away, and understandably want to be with their families during the holidays, leaving a skeleton staff and a packed clinic. 

– expect to be seen on time. Plan to wait for many hours at the clinic for each phase of treatment. That was the number one complaint of most people I talked to. 

– be surprised when they suggest you need a pile of crowns. If your tooth requires a multi surface filling it seems a crown is recommended. We met many seniors who were having every tooth crowned, and a fifteen year old who required fifteen crowns. We were shocked when we were told B needed eight. We agreed to six based on the evidence shown through x-ray and examination. The other two were repaired conventionally by a dentist in California.

– buy controlled prescription drugs (which includes some antibiotics) unless you have a prescription for them. Always buy from one of the major pharmacies. 

 

 

Reasonably priced dental care, prescription drugs and optometry services lure uninsured and senior Canadian and US travellers to this "quaint" Mexican border town where there are 300 dental clinics in about six square blocks. There are more dentists here per capita than anywhere else in the world. The town is so geared to dental patients, that the restaurants offer blended meals on request.

I totally get it when you consider how many people are uninsured dentally and are looking at $1300 for a crown in Canada, where in Algodones, the price ranges from $180 (porcelain on metal) to $375 (Cerec, a crown-in-a-day system or Zirconia crowns) each. Last year the Calgary Sun ran this article about dental tourism.

Our 24 year old son, insuranceless, was in need of major work. We did not quite enough research and plunged into a dental adventure. Algodones was a 2.5 hour drive from where we were staying in Palm Springs. I'll give you the ending first and the next post will be the do's and don'ts.

B had a total of six crowns, fewer than they wanted to do, but the x-rays supported the treatment plan for those six specific teeth. His discomfort afterwards required a visit to a dentist in Palm Springs and we were somewhat reassured that four of the six were done acceptably. One, however, will need to be replaced and can best be considered as a temporary requiring extra effort to be kept clean. The other required two seconds of adjusting for a more comfortable fit.

All in all, including the cost of the dentist in Palm Springs, who adjusted his bite to make him finally comfortable, and who did the restorative work on the two teeth that would have been crowned in Mexico, we got what we paid for, $7000 of Canadian dental work for $2000.

I would not recommend the clinic we used, one of the largest in Algodones, but they did their best for us after we requested a change in dentist and they discovered a mistake, including putting us up in their affiliated hotel, the only one in town, for three nights over New Year's. I would be glad to share more specifics, just leave a comment and I'll reply. It bears mention that I met many people in the waiting room over our eight days of dental treatment, who were repeat customers, and were happy with their work.

Our room in the Hacienda:

Making the best of a challenging situation, AKA killing the pain x 2, teeth and hand:

 Completed vacation painting, thought the subject of olives and salsa was appropriate:

 Los Algodones feels like a dental twilight zone. The litter in the street includes occasional discarded dental cotton rolls, floss and and some dropped anti-inflammatories. It feels very safe considering that thousands of people are walking around with cash in their pocket for major dental treatment. I would go again heeding the do's and don'ts in my next post.

 

 

It is just shy of 24 hours ago when I left the hospital with a replaced CMC joint  (the base of the thumb, where it meets your wrist). Interesting experience in many ways.

A coworker was also having outpatient surgery this past week, in the same health region. She was instructed to shower the night before after making sure she was changing into freshly laundered jammies with clean sheets on the bed. She was given large sanitizing wipes to use prior to her admission.

I had major surgery wearing my jeans and trail runners in the OR, listening to the staff's choice of 80's dance music. As I was fully awake, having been administered a scapular nerve block producing an arm that felt both heavy and unattached,  I was given the option of bringing along my iphone and earbuds. Hell no, I didn't want to miss the party. I listened to the power tools removing and reconstructing ligament into bone to the tune of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Mony Mony. This is not the drugs talking,  I can assure you, because under the new rules, oxy anything is considered too strong for orthopedic surgery pain control.

Today finds me painfully heaving my heavily casted arm somewhere between my heart and the ceiling at all times, while watching the clock for the next dose of Tramacet. And then a much appreciated moment of cheer from my coworkers arrived at the front door:

When I was growing up, way back when, sausage meant three choices:   Puerto Rican chorizo canned in solid orange fat, Polish kielbasa, or sagey breakfast sausages from Jimmy Dean. In the 70's I moved to Omaha and craved the apple potato ones from Stoysich House of Sausage. Forty years later and the current varieties contain a conglomeration of ingredients equalling complete meals in a casing:

Although I've lived over half my life in Canada, there is something about US Thanksgiving that throws me into fits of nostalgia. As it's always a work day for me, each Thanksgiving, about 30 minutes prior to quitting time I'm planing for quick cooking turkey legs and stove top stuffing or turkey dinner at Canada's White Spot.

Too fried from meeting deadlines to face going out to dinner on a wet and dreary Pacific Northwest night, I stopped in at the grocery store to find NO turkey legs. The butcher offered me two choices: come back tomorrow or buy sausages on special. My decision, after whining "But Thanksgiving is todaaaaay," included a lamb steak, and three varieties of sausages: blueberry and maple (looking somewhat coagulated), kelly green chicken kale and feta, and red hot chorizo.

It wasn't turkey, but it was the colour of autumn leaf centerpieces the kids in my family used to make for the table, gathering the leaves while the turkey was cooking and returning to a deliciously sage scented house. I realize now that's the origin our family tradition of talking a long walk, soon after the turkey hits the oven. I love that wall of flavour that hits the senses when walking in the door.

Upon hearing the details, my husband, who knows me all to well said "What, did you pick them up in the clearance bin?" No, as a matter of fact, I didn't. These are of the gourmet variety and are quite in demand. And as it turned out, the mixed grill made it a special, albeit odd, Thanksgiving dinner. 

Update: one handed blogging ahead! I've been given a time for the surgery mentioned in my last post, this coming Thursday.

Number ten – just realized that this past September, I missed  Life's a Stitch's ten year anniversary. Once upon a time, in the beginning of knitting blogdom, we posted "100 Things About Me." I came up with 59 and over the decade even some of them have changed:

I am now:

• a mother of three, two girls ages 21 31 and  19 29, and a boy age 14 24, mother-in-law to one with another one on the way, grandmother to a 2 year old boy.
• owned by a Scottish Terrier  We're now owned by her memory.
• the Executive Director of a non-profit society  Still there, fifteen years and counting
• in a committed relationship for over 24 34 years

An Election Day story:

It's municipal election day in British Columbia. Takes me back to another election, a Provincial one, the same day as the demise of our sweet Gracee dog. C was too upset to to cast his ballot, but somehow Mr. Bry age 23 at the time,  and I, in need of deep distraction, made it to the polling station to do our civic duty.  Stop me if I've told you this before. As we were leaving he says:

"Did you see her?" 

"Who?"

"That girl, the one with the amazing eyes. The one at the other table checking in voters. She was looking at me, too." Mr Bry has a tendency to fall in love hard and fast.

"Well why don't you go and talk to her?"

"No, it would be inappropriate." Is this really my son demonstrating a  sense of social propriety?

Instead he elects, so to speak, to run an ad in the "I Saw You" section of Vancouver's Georgia Straight. You know that kind of ad, where hopefuls seek someone they've seen, out of a sense of regret for not initiating social interaction?

A little over a year later at a music festival of thousands, B is backstage following his act. He is approached by an accomplished performer, a person whom B has admired and whose inspiration has lead to his being here this very night.  He is accompanied by a young woman, his girlfriend, who says:

"Wait a minute, did you vote in the May election at polling station #89?" 

"It's you! I posted an I Saw You ad after election day."

"I've always wanted to be the subject of one of those ads." 

"Were you upset that she was attached to someone else?" says this concerned mother who hates to see her children suffering from broken hearts.

He was fine with it, a fan of synchronicity, finding it amazing that they even had the opportunity to reconnect. He was more upset about the election results. 

It'll be interesting to see what tonight's election results bring. 

 

 

 

As far as watercolours go, this was a fun one to paint. Mt. Shuksan, Whatcom County, Washington:

 The subject of my last painting was here for Halloween weekend, as his mom flew in for work:

If years ago someone had asked me to envision my ideal scene of grandparenthood, this would have been it. Reading with a little one on my lap: