This is a tale of two raggedy mouths.
So why did my mother’s face swell up last week for the second time. She calls me at 4 am talking bout "my face is swollen, do I need to go to the e.r.". First problem: IT IS 4 MUFREAKING AM! If it ain’t falling off, bleeding, not moving or dead, DON’T RING MY PHONE AT THAT TIME OF MORNING! I told her to go to bed and call the doctor in the morning (morning being in like 3 hours). I get on up and go to work. I get to work, do my PT and decide to call my mom to see what time she was going to the doc. She says she can’t get in that day, she has to wait until tommorow. I ask the doc questions: pain, numbness, stiffness. She says she doesn’t know if it’s numb. The hell! So I go to my boss and tell him I need to go home to check on my mother in case she has had a stroke and thinks her face is swollen when it’s really drooping.
I get to the house and yeah it’s swollen but not drooping. There’s no slurring of words and I don’t see any visible lumps or bumps. My very hysterical brother calls me wanting to know all the possibilities. I’m the calm one so I tell him I don’t know and we are going to the dang dentist.
Now why is it that when people get older, they act like they don’t know how to do jack. I ask my mother if she has dental insurance. "I don’t know". Do they take it out of your check? "I don’t know". Get me a check stub. I get the check stub, see insurance. What’s the company? "I don’t know". Call the benefits office at your job. "I don’t know a dentist". How about the one who comes to all the church health fairs? "Oh yeah, I forgot about her". We call her, she can see my mom that day.
Y’all my mother HATES the dentist. Bad experience as a child left her in absolute terror of going. $5000 (yeah five grand) in dental work she needs. She had a gum infection that spread to her face.
I call my dad yesterday. Y’all remember me talking bout my dad. 62 year old man who lives either with a girlfriend or his momma. Ok I digress. Why was he sick last week from a bad tooth?
That ignint azz boyfriend (yeah I meant to spell it that way) was walking around this morning singing at the top of his lungs "Raggedy Mouth Blues- A duet by Exhausted’s parents". Ooh I hate him, LOL.
But seriously, going to the dentist is not just cosmetic people! Mouth infections can lead to serious blood infections. Plaque and mouth bacteria are linked to both diabetes and heart disease. Yeah your grill can get you in all kinds of trouble. So if you love someone and they are yuckmouths… send them to the first dentist you see. It could save a life.
