A Dental Pilgrimage

The date is 12th July 2015, and I have just landed in Mumbai, India for a dental appointment. All the way to India, you may ask, but why? A long story....

For a long time, I had never paid much attention to my teeth. For several reasons. One, they were always there after my good old mother stopped pulling them out. Little did I

know that these were her "milk" teeth and she wanted to make me understand that once she was through with them, then she was through with me: "Go find yourself some sugarcane or something else to chew but not me..."

Two, teeth were just teeth! Whoever worried when growing up what they would end up doing or getting done to? Point is, they were always safely inside your mouth protected in all sorts of ways. Unless you opened your mouth, no one even knew they were there

Meno

Until the day you grew up and just knew that gnawing sugarcane or grinding roast maize was part of their job. Or chewing meat and lord knows what other delicacies, my oh my! That, until the realisation at teenage that if you had a good set and managed to flash them at an adoring wench, then it was a different ball game! Oh, those teeth to die for.

And on and on until, some years later you got that funny feeling that one of your dear old mandibles was hurting. What now? "This is a completely new ball game. Teeth? Hurt? No way. Something must be terribly wrong".

Until you sadly discovered that your precious white tooth was actually as much alive as the big toe on you left foot. But, what to do? Surely, not run back to Mama.. No way, bear it like a man... Or a big girl...

Another Story

And this is where the real story begins....

Until the day he landed at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport for a dental appointment, AnkoJoe had not paid much attention to his increasing loss of mandibles. At the last count, his Nairobi dentist going by the kindly name Dr Minesh, had never told him much more than: "This one is a goner. Must come out".

"Then off with it!".

And so it went. Others followed and soon, AnkoJoe was minus all six molars. And two wisdom teeth. You may not have bothered to check, but your entire molar arsenal in is ten and there is no goalkeeper. Molar-less and wisdom-less, how terrible! His favorite goat rib was out as was the juicy T-bone steak that was the love of his life. He would now be stuck at best with eating "mutura" or "ngerima" like his good old grandmother! No way. A warrior must find another way.

The nice lady with her perfect smile explained the delicate procedure. Yes, they were experts at putting in new implants, yes, but the situation was a little more complicated than that. You see, they had to first make sure that the rest of the mouth was ok.

I protested that I came to have four implants in my mouth.

"True. But, we would be failing in our professional duty if we did not tell you about the rest of your teeth", she says.

"Fair", I reply. "What does that involve?"

Marlee. Toothless.

Dr. Ash

"First, we must take a full mouth scan....". And then, she went on to explain, after that they would know for sure exactly what to do.

"And by the way, your front teeth are covered with plaque!", she added casually. "It has to be removed".

"Why? What for?", I ask aghast.

"Because it is eating into your teeth and your gums and ...... ", she went on and on. "Very soon, even your front teeth will have to be removed!"

Now, that got my attention. I remembered my mother. How she lost one tooth after another until her good ol' dentist Dr Qureshi one day told me: "Might as well pull all of them out. They are all gone anyway?"

"But", I protested, "how will she eat?"

"That is easy", he said. "We will fix her a full-mouth denture".

And that is how my dear old mum ended with a new denture which made her laugh like a teenager whenever she looked at herself in the mirror. She even started eating again and actually even put on a bit of the weight she had lost because the very idea of putting any food in her mouth was out of the question. She had learnt how to live on tea and bread for years...

The thought that I was going to end up like my mother did it.

"Let us get on with it!". Just like that...

Two more gone molars down the line - the X-ray showed that they were beyond salvation anyway - it was time to get down to the business of saving my otherwise misshapen but "snow white" front teeth. I was scheduled for the procedure the following Tuesday.

After an hour of drilling and chipping, I asked the manic who was mining my mouth what was going on and how much longer it was going to take.

"Just straightening your teeth", said he. "Should be done in twenty minutes. Or would you rather come back tomorrow?"

Me, a whole circumcised man, come back tomorrow for this? No way! "Get on with job".

And he did.

"We are done for the day", he announced forty five minutes later. "Want to have a look?" he asked, giving me a mirror.

Over my dead body! I thought, looking at the smug look on his face. Cannot, will not, give the silly fella the chance to " enjoy me " like we say back in the hills of Ndakaini. Over my dead body! I muttered again under my breath and headed for the door. It was now 6.00 pm and soon it will be dark. Couldn't afford walking the night streets of Mumbai the way I was feeling...

Back to my Room.

And so, when I got back to my room at the Castle - that is what some witty owner calls his tiny hotel in the middle of a not-so-bad part of Mumbai - only then did I gather enough courage to look at the mirror in the bathroom. Dracula was staring back at me. Minus the wig of course!

"Oh mi god! What is that?"

I must get my camera, a new kind of contraption I had acquired recently thanks to nagging by my friends that I was embarrassing them with my "kamlika mwizi" phone.

They should feel ashamed of themselves, damn them, a Nokia 206 is definitely not a "mlika mwizi", well, not exactly! It does have its limitations, though, but I just love that phone. Especially since I got it using Bonga points to replace another Nokia(E52) given to me by a Nokia executive as a promotional gift, bless her but she left Nokia for Google soon thereafter. Good move Dorothy(that was her name) but I didn't get to tell her that.

Best phone I ever had, if you ask me, but I am told it bankrupted the company and the company, a Finn darling, had to be sold to Microsoft. Not the full story, but tells you a thing or two or two about not seeing the corporate writing on the wall: Mene mene tekel....

Talk of capitalism gone to the dogs! For those not in the know, Nokia died because it could not see the wave of a little human weakness: touching and swiping. With the same fingers they were using. Why peck at your phone when you can swipe and get the feeling that you were doing something infinitely more sexy? Just ask those Koreans Samsuing their way into the world's hearts... And pockets. A story for another day.

But, alas, back to my dear mandibles.

Dracula

The Dracula staring wickedly at me was nothing, absolutely nothing, of what I was made to expect. The nice lady dentist had said she was going to "even out" my misshapen lower teeth, remove the gaps where meat bits usually got stuck and then bind them together "nicely", she said, adding coyly: "It might even improve your smile". I did not come all the way to Mumbai for a smile I did not need at my age - "What for? You silly girl", I nearly asked her.

But it was too late. Quickly, I brushed them, cleaned my mouth thoroughly and fixed me a strong drink. A Double Black I had mercifully bought myself for forty bucks at the duty free on arrivals just for such an emergency. Could not sip well on account of the still anesthetized lower lip. But I could swallow. Even thought of asking room service for a straw. To drink a JW? They would think I had cracked up. I started to settle down for my fifth night in Mumbai...

When I woke up the following morning and looked at Dracula again, my lips no longer droopy and the pain gone, I thought to myself: "Not too bad". I might even use it to frighten Marlee, my youngest granddaughter. Well, almost youngest.

And that is when the awful truth hit me. I remember her asking me to sign a one pager in small print before my treatment commenced. I asked her what it was.

"Standard procedure for patients going into surgery", she said. Just in case something goes wrong and you don't wake up or wake up looking like Dracula, I now realised. Which is why I had insisted on reading the small print before appending my signature and date at the bottom. They quickly took the one pager and hid it somewhere.

Quickly, I resigned myself to my new look, called room service for breakfast, had a long Indian sit-down shower and prepared myself for a long day. Luckily, I was reading two novels at the same time: Sam Kahiga's masterpiece "Dedan Kimathi" and David Baldacci's thriller "Saving Faith". Could not wait to get my Dracula teeth into them...

Full Body Check

Later, I went to check out a hospital across the street that specialises in hearts and such body matters. As I had lately been having strange suspicions that my old heart had been having some funny sensations, like no longer falling in love at first sight, I thought I should have it checked. As I went inside the 19th Century monstrosity of a hospital, I asked for someone to check a bunion that was developing near my left elbow.

"That will be R 150 for consultation. Pay the cashier", she ordered. Which I did then showed me to the doctor who examined it thoroughly and said it needed a soft tissue MRI and referred me back to the cashier.

"That will be R 250". I paid and went for the MRI.

"Come for results tomorrow", she said as I left.

Wait a minute! I thought to myself, that is 400 Rupees which, at the going exchange rate of Sh. 1.50 per Rupee, amounts to the princely sum of Sh. 600! That is when I decided that, since I am here, I might as well do a few other tests: blood pressure, blood sugar, liver function, ear hearing function, lung test and, what the hell, that old heart of mine. Could have done others but, hell, why put your hand into a dog's mouth to see if it will bite you as we say in golf? Stick to the essentials..

And so it was. Some 6,930 Rupees later(that is, all of Sh. 10,000), I had all my results in detail and in writing. As for the bad or good news, I will not ask these guys here. I need the comforts of my familiar Upper Hill Medical doctors. Why? I have detected a certain indefinable look in the doctors faces here: "Just come into my office so I can explain what needs to be done". No way I was going to fall into that ruse...

And that is partly why I did not go back to Dr Soeb's office after I got the cardiac - that is, heart for you - report. Looking at the report, even even with my primordial gicagi mind, I did not think there was anything major about my increasing inability to fall in love at first sight. My incorrigibly romantic grandfather (after whom I am named) did it eleven times and produced enough goats to prove it and I have no intention of outdoing him..

So there you have it. I went back a day later to the dentist and, voila! I had my front incisor covers back. This time, I did not require too much persuasion to look at my mouth. Wow! Not bad, I whispered to myself. I might even find a way to smile my way into another wench's heart... Or, to not scare little Marlee any more. I prefer that.

And the implants? That is a long story. For another day. Tomorrow, I am going home.

JH Kimura,
Cumbala Hill,
Mumbai,
12th July 2015.

In retrospect, my going to Mumbai was an eye opener. India was one of the countries I had never been to in spite of my having visited most of the world even as far as Australia. I had found no real reason to go there.

And it was as well. During my medical pilgrimage I had the chance to visit various parts of Mumbai and to observe their cultures first hand. It is not my kind of country especially

because of the poverty I saw amid plenty. No wonder the Indians who come to Kenya never really want to go back there.

Another aspect is the whole area of medical ethics. Yes, they are relatively cheap compared to Europe and even South Africa but there is a catch: they create a dependency syndrome that is not entirely ethical and they have unfortunately spread it to our Kenyan doctors. In case you are not aware, there are doctors these days who seem to thrive on unnecessary procedures to say the least. At great cost to their unaware patients.

As for my molar implants, they were done six months later. It ended up costing me much more than I had anticipated. But, mercifully, a good chunk was covered by insurance.

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