Crownin' Glory

When I was 16 my best friend and me went for a cycle ride (like you do when you are Dutch) to the nearby woods. I think her bike was broken so we both went on mine. I had one of those REALLY cool 'grandma' bikes, they had this very old fashioned look which was very 'in' at the time.

The main attraction for me was the little basket in the front which could hold my schoolbags but, as we found out very quickly, if you removed the basket a proper 'seat' was revealed in front. Of course... NORMAL teenagers have their friends on the BACK of the bike but it was so much more social to have her in front facing me so we could chatter easily. Since I was quite chubby and she was tiny and 2 years younger we thought it would be fine!

Which it was... we cycled for miles singing silly songs (like you do at that age) until we came to a road in the woods with 'sleeping policemen', we took a few of those without any problems when suddenly I found myself on the street bleeding from my mouth.

I still don't quite know what happened exactly, if it was the sleeping policeman that unsettled the very fragile balance of too much weight in the front of the bike or if my friend put her foot in the front wheel by accident which made my bike go into a sudden halt and flip. Result was though that she landed on her bum on the street when I did a fantastic up and over dive through the air and landed head first on the tarmac. All the wallpaper off my face, my hands raw and bloody (I must have put my hands out in a reflex, so for the record I landed head second on the tarmac) and the most horrible thing one of my front teeth had almost half missing.

It was drama all around.. my parents weren't home at the time (out shopping) and of course when they got home were shocked about the state I was in.. I remember my dad wailing 'your teeth, what a pity of your teeth' which really peeved me off at the time as if the rest of me didn't hurt a lot more than my tooth.. little did I know how much I would agree with him later in life!

Anyway... after all my bruises and muscle aches were gone and wall paper grown back it was time for a visit to the dentist. Since we normally only went to the 'school dentist' and I don't think my parents went to any at all (naughty) I was dragged to an unknown butcher somewhere in the heart of Rotterdam. He changed my life forever, in a bad way :) He has given me a crown that was not only the wrong size, color AND shape, he also did a root canal without any anesthetic which for the rest of my days made me terrified of dentists!

That crown has been the bane of my life.. first all the exclamations from everybody (family, teachers, friends) on how awful it was and what a waste of a lovely smile which had a dramatic effect on my self confidence of course. (no nice teeth = ugly) Then the ever lasting issues I had with the damn thing.

First when I was 22 or so it suddenly started hurting an awful lot, went to the surgeon (after the dentist couldn't find anything) who only took a tiny sliver off the back of it because he said I was biting it which made it hurt (which turned out to be true)

Then when I was about 32 the dentist who restored a bit of my trust in dentists said that it should really be renewed because it didn't look nice and was too big and misshapen and the wrong color so I did that and sort of lived happily ever after.

Then at about 40 an abscess started appearing on my gum on top of my crown under my lip, you couldn't see it but I could definitely feel it, it grew bigger all the time until I couldn't ignore it any more and had to go to the jaw surgeon who scraped the root which had inflamed. Strangely enough that wasn't as bad as it sounded (albeit awful of course) but he did say 'it MIGHT make your crown instable'. Oh dear.

Life sort of took over after that, too much to think about, too many things to do and crown took a back seat. Until this summer my niece sent me this picture where you can clearly see not only that I am getting seriously grey haired but most of all the call of the sticking out like a sore thumb crown!!

And now, after my cold, all my teeth hurt with the leader of the pack definitely being this ratchet crown! So.. I ask myself... what now? I have seen too many of those extreme make-over programs I think, where they are in the dentist chair for about 30 seconds and come out with brilliant white even looking shiners. Probably costing about 5000 quid or so.

So.. the 16th of February is our dentist checkup... think I am gonna be brave and ask for my options ..