One Cavity

I was inspired by a friend's blog about teeth http://ogblay.blogspot.com/ to write my own dental adventures.

My teeth have always been a non-issue. Never had any cavities as a kid. My uncle was a dentist and we saw him regularly for those enjoyable flouride treatments. I think my good luck came mostly from genetics - teeth spaced pretty far apart all around. I can't take any credit for them - I just brushed morning and night. Hardly ever flossed.

Even into adulthood, with very rare visits to the dentist, I plugged along happily with no cavities. I felt sorry for friends and family who had to deal with painful, expensive dental operations.

Then.....four months ago I went in for a cleaning and WHAMO! my friendly dentist found my first cavity. WAH! Me? A cavity? How can it be?

It gets worse. After my first filling (it wasn't not too bad - didn't really hurt, but my jaw was sore later), I moved over a cublicle to have my teeth cleaned. The nice lady who works all day with her fingers in someone else's mouth said to me,

"I'm just doing a manual cancer check," as she rubbed my jaw and throat. "Oh! You have a lump!"

Yep - a big lump on the left side of my neck.

"I just wanted my teeth cleaned!" I'm thinking to myself. "Not to deal with cancer and death."

After many Dr. appointments and various scans and biopsies it turns out to be a cyst on my thyroid. The first biopsy came back benign (yeah!). I go for my second opinion appointment tomorrow with a fancy endocronoligist at UCSF tomorrow. Probably will have to take many more scans (did you know they inject you with radioactive material?) and biopsies before I know anything more.

Man.....all from one cavity! Is it all down hill from here?