The dentist

I started this post a couple of weeks ago, soon after my gums suddenly swelled up. Decided to finish it up and post it now.

Tim's best friend from high school is now a dentist.

A dentist seems very respectable. Whereas Marcus always struck me as a little wild. He played the drums in Tim's three man band.

Now he is a dentist in Oregon.

We called Marcus Sunday night (August 29) for dental advice. I had spent the day in bed, in pain. It was Tim's suggestion to call Marcus. No, said I. We can't mix business with friendship. Why not? said Tim. Marcus called him all the time with computer questions.

Tim is in the computer industry, and works remotely. That makes more sense for a guy who used to play the electric guitar in the basement. Grew his hair long because his mother wanted him to cut it. A remote-working computer scientist seems a much more appropriate career choice for this personality type than a dentist. But that's just my bias showing through.

So we called Marcus, and told him about our week, and let him ask questions that are easier to ask as a dentist. (You guys aren't pregnant, are you?)

I believe Marcus's mother thought Tim was a bad influence on her son. But Marcus never struck me as the kind of guy who would be affected by peer influence. Maybe that helps explain the dentist thing, too. He and Tim were both smart, different, unexpected. No wonder they became friends and stayed friends.

So Sunday, Marcus listened to my dental woes and offered his opinion. He suggested that a change in diet (too many tomatoes), combined with a heavy load of stress (classes starting, international travel), depleted my natural defenses and led to canker sores. And once the skin of my gums and cheeks was breached, perhaps a secondary infection moved in. He listened and gave some suggestions, and prescribed a power mouth wash and second antibiotic to attack it.

And then Marcus the dentist talked to Tim for a while.

The day after starting the new prescriptions, the swelling was way down. By the end of the week, when I left for Japan, the bleeding was mostly gone. By the end of the trip, the gums were almost back to normal, just like Google predicted.

Thank you Marcus.

This has made me realize how important it is to find a medical doctor friend and car mechanic friend. I am taking applications.