My Second Root Canal

Had a mildly sore tooth for the last month.  Lacking dental insurance, I now get my dental care at the UW School of Dentistry.  The price is right although scheduling is weeks slower.  That makes a strong argument for being proactive in my dental care.

Students are definitely slower than practicing professionals.   Spent 3.5 hours in the dental chair this afternoon while an endontist-to-be did a root canal.  Was going to be a 3-session experience, but due to the long time today, I will only have one more visit in early December.

I have a lot of skill and experience in advocating for my health care.   It is nearly impossible to make well informed choices about dental care.  My previous private practice dentist did a great job on the dental care.   I am also sure he was gouging me for replacing fillings that did not need to be replaced.   Whenever the dental students see the gold work on my teeth, they all say with a sense of reverence and awe “ooowww, that’s nice gold work”.

I had my wisdom teeth pulled 15 years ago.  I have all the rest of my teeth and want to keep them.  They work great for me.

I got my first root canal 7 years ago.   It cost me $1200.  The second root canal will take a few more trips to the dental school and cost me $150.  I might buy a new laptop and car stereo with the savings.   I already paid for new tires on Tuesday [they will be installed next week].

I am grateful for great cheap dental care and for having all my teeth.

A Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory

Working the 12-steps via the Narcotics Anonymous Step Working Guides.  Despite the plural name, it is a letter-size soft cover book of 124 pages with 400+questions on the steps.  I am writing my responses in cursive in a 3-ring notebook.  Tonight I finished the last question of the 3^rd step and so am now on the 4^th step.

Last year Lea and I started a simplified recovery bible-based workbook with short fill-in-the-blank answers.  That was not a searching inventory by any stretch of the imagination.

I read the 4^th step from the the NA 12x12 today and a couple pages from the study guide tonight.   It has been almost 10 years since my last 4^th step. 

An online definition of moral is: “Moral comes from the Latin word mores, for habits. The moral of a story is supposed to teach you how to be a better person. If moral is used as an adjective, it means good, or ethical. If you have a strong moral character, you are a good member of society. If someone is a cheat and a liar, you might say, "She is not a moral person.”

I am grateful to be sober and working on being a better person.   After a rough year with health care issues, I am optimistic for happier times.

I Just Voted

King County—in the Seattle metro area—strongly encourages voting by mail aka “absentee ballot”.  I have been to a voting both a couple times in my life in college when there was a booth at the apartment complex where I lived in Santa Barbara.  Other than that, it has been all vote-by-mail.   VBM is a fantastic way to vote by leaving a paper trail that can be audited and recounted along with no lines and open 24/7 for weeks in advance.

This year there were a couple of measures asking how voters felt for already implemented taxes such as a tax on oil trains amounting to $17M.  The choices were to keep or repeal said taxes.  I wanted a 3^rd choice to increase taxes.  Not an option.

In light of the voter suppression going on elsewhere in the country, King County is a bastion of voting opportunity in many ways.

I am grateful for the opportunity to vote in a easy user friendly manor that does not require me to get special ID or have to wait in line for hours at a distant hard-to-get-to location.