Implants after HNC part 2

Chapter three or four in my implant story and I feel sad. I know people envy me for getting four free implants from the public service but the reality is I am now worse off than I was after my big surgery last year. One of the implant abutments is digging into the tender flesh of my sore inner lip. And I’m biting it with a big remaining tooth from above.

I’ll never lose my gratitude for what the max fax department is trying to do for me but when you are almost toothless, disfigured, dribbling badly and sore, it’s hard to appreciate your privilege.

At yesterday’s appointment I received some confusing news about needing more mouthguards and a little surgery before the finished product is done.

I asked if I’d have something before Christmas and he said, “We’d hope you’d have something by then.”

I had the implants put in on October 27 2021, the abutments placed on them in May 2022 (six months to integrate into the bone). Two weeks later I was meant to have an impression made and then a denture constructed to be anchored to the implants.

That’s what would have happened to a normal person but I ain’t normal and have hit a roadblock because of my constant damage to my own soft tissue. I bite my tissue without feeling it at the time but there are nerves somewhere down there and the pain comes later.

I’ve done myself some damage which will need to be fixed before a normal trajectory can proceed. There’s also been a hold up at the hospital which has lost me a month or so: them not getting back to me, me not ringing them because I didn’t have the number of the only useful person to ring till a friend gave it to me. Covid and flu affecting staff.

When I saw the prostho yesterday he was his usual charming, kind and skillful self. These guys have to problem solve on the spot. None of their hospital patients are going to be easy.

There’s a big ridge of tissue that will have to come out and will need a surgeon booked in to do it. God knows. I’ll probably have to have that done before the impression for teeth. He was very cagey about the timeline and with all my polite but probing questions I couldn’t get a straight answer and I’m very confused.

Top teeth which for me would be the main priority can’t come until after they have made the bottom teeth. Making dentures at Middlemore takes months because you need a series of six appointments.

Having only a couple of eyeteeth is horrible. I can wear a mask but if I talk to people the mask fills up with saliva and I have to keep inserting a cloth to wipe it. I’m at a time of my life when after two years of semi isolating by myself for Covid I need to get out and be with people. It makes SUCH a difference if I have a social engagement nearly every day. People seem to enjoy my company and I’m branching out into more of a leadership role in the University of the Third Age. I love it but f**k, another 6 months of struggling with my mask (old people can’t always hear me through it) is not a nice prospect.

People have commented on how brave I am to socialise with all my defects!

It’s a relief to write this down. In fact on the bus on the way home I wrote down all the ways I could cope with my life without the prospect of teeth any time soon.

I know I can do it. I can keep going the way I have been since last October. Enjoy the things I can do. Keep going out and braving the masses. Practise judicious mask use.

Look for enjoyment and productivity in my one precious life.