.November, 2008

He's showing that he can't smile without his teeth., originally uploaded by Susan NYC.

He's showing that he can't smile without his teeth.  Pictures like this make me particularly sad - here's a guy who didn't really smile much during his lifetime, and now, when he wants to smile, he feels too self conscious because he has no teeth.

He lost his dentures several years ago, and the head of the floor at the Hyatt said to wait, they'd turn up. They didn't.  And by the time he got new dentures, his gums and jaw had lost too much bone for them to stay in.  So he'd take them out and they'd get lost. And then the delay, again, before the new ones came.

The last pair of dentures sit in my desk drawer.  The upper, especially, kept falling out, and I was afraid he'd choke on it.  I asked the dentist at the nursing home if that was a possibility, and she said yes, sure.

I wonder why they let him leave the clinic with dentures that wouldn't stay in.