It Made Sense In My Mind

So I was at the oral surgeon’s today with our youngest daughter. Lucky gal has three un-erupted wisdom teeth that will need extracting. Yikes. Anyway, after the intro given by the lovely nurse, the doc comes in, all wild-eyed and Superman-ish. We’ve known him for many years; he used to be our neighbor. I really like him, but he’s a little scary. 

“Well, that was fun,” he says, sliding into his chair like it was home base.

I look expectantly at him, unsure how to respond. Is he mad? Is he having a bad day? Do I want to know, in either case??

“90-year old lady,” he explains. “Alzheimer’s. Needs all her teeth pulled.”

“Ah,” I said. (I’m a real conversationalist.) We’d passed the lady in the waiting room. Poor thing was definitely unhappy and confused.

“Won’t do it though,” he continued, looking between us as he prepared the punchline. “Mouthful of rotten teeth and she refuses treatment.”

“Why?” we asked obediently.

“Because her teeth made her go blind.”

Daughter and I look at each other.

“What?”

“That’s right. Says her teeth made her go blind. Adamant about it. Had to tell me the whole story.” He shook his head. “Some days.”

“You’d think,” I said, “that she’d WANT to have her teeth out, since they made her go blind.”

You know. She’s got Alzheimer’s. Her reality, and all. My daughter understood me.

Doc Superman did not.

“The teeth didn’t make her go blind,” he explained. “The dementia did that.”

We stuck to the business of wisdom teeth after that.