The Grandchildren and Teeth

Photo Copyright Maggie May

It appears that the grandchildren have come to stay early. They arrived on Friday evening with bags full of their belongings. However their daddy will be here until Monday morning and then they will be alone with Harry and me.

Amber the oldest granddaughter has no teeth in the front of her mouth at all because being seven, that is what happens to the baby teeth. They all seemed to go one after the other and the tooth fairy was very busy for a few weeks. She will look very different when the new ones come through. I always think that baby look disappears when that happens, as they look more grown up.

I was worried about my teeth at the beginning of the week because I hadn't been able to have cleaning or dental inspections while having chemo and for some reason or other, I was convinced that chemo had wrecked them.

My appointment was for Friday afternoon but early in the morning I had a telephone call to say my dentist had to cancel as he wasn't in that day. I wasn't very happy about that.I felt that I'd waited long enough, though it wasn't the dentist's fault.

Anyway, I went along to the hygienist appointment and had them all cleaned professionally.

Although she isn't a dentist, she did assure me that my mouth wasn't full of cavities (as I'd imagined) and she said my mouth, teeth and gums were in good condition. So all the mouth wash I used was obviously a good deterrent against decay during chemo.

I have another appointment in two weeks to see the dentist anyway.

In my last post I mentioned the poem below that was going around in the seventies and eighties and we all thought it was very funny. I hope you have time to read it.

OH, I WISH I'D LOOKED AFTER MY TEETH
by
Pam Ayres

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,

And spotted the perils beneath,

All the toffees I chewed,

And the sweet sticky food,

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.

I wish I'd been that much more willin'

When I had more tooth there than fillin'

To pass up gobstoppers,

From respect to me choppers

And to buy something else with me shillin'.

When I think of the lollies I licked,

And the liquorice allsorts I picked,

Sherbet dabs, big and little,

All that hard peanut brittle,

My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My Mother, she told me no end,

"If you got a tooth, you got a friend"

I was young then, and careless,

My toothbrush was hairless,

I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,

I flashed it about late at night,

But up-and-down brushin'

And pokin' and fussin'

Didn't seem worth the time... I could bite!

If I'd known I was paving the way,

To cavities, caps and decay,

The murder of fiIlin's

Injections and drillin's

I'd have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lay in the old dentist's chair,

And I gaze up his nose in despair,

And his drill it do whine,

In these molars of mine,

"Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there."

How I laughed at my Mother's false teeth,

As they foamed in the waters beneath,

But now comes the reckonin'

It's me they are beckonin'

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.