Medical and dental are two areas where it's easy to feel very shaky when you're overseas. This week we've been hearing of the medical dramas of friends/colleagues who've just arrived in Taiwan with their toddler and baby for the first time, so don't have much language yet. I feel for them! Thankfully they have had good help from English-speakers.
So we got good dental care in Australia and were told to get checkups six months after we got back to Japan in July last year. Well soon after we arrived in Japan we discovered that the kind dentist I mentioned here had retired. So I was without a dentist. I'd like to write "the hunt began" but it didn't really. It wasn't until April that I finally got around to finding a dentist that would be able to cope with my limited dental Japanese.
Got to love their English, though. The conclusion on my teeth when I finally got an appointment was "we can't see any cavities or gum disease, so your brushing mustn't be too bad"!
Then they explained that they couldn't clean all my teeth that day. What? They explained that Japanese medical insurance doesn't cover it. So you have to have your teeth cleaned over two separate appointments. I don't know what our previous dentists did (maybe they fiddled the books?) but we've never had to have two appointments just for teeth cleaning before.
Nevertheless, I got the rest of my teeth attended to today, all by myself. And I've arranged for the rest of the family as well! The third boy sees a dentist/orthodontist regularly. They clean all his teeth every time (he's never had such clean teeth). But probably insurance isn't covering that!
Sometimes small things are so satisfying.
I had meant to try to squeeze a ride to the park today, but discovering this morning that I had a mid-morning dental appointment put a stop to that thought. I did ride, though, to the dentist, post office, and two grocery stores. None of them very far away, but it was a short ride and I kept my eyes open for beautiful flowers. There are so many at this time of year! I stopped to take a photo of these beauties gracing an otherwise dull concrete retaining wall next to our river.
3 comments:
Sadly, my medical vocabulary is better than some of my other vocabulary. It is still a struggle, especially when confronted with something new. However, I don't rank dental vocabulary with medical vocabulary and it is still a huge struggle for me. BTW ~ I'm still am not sure what they put into my mouth on Monday. I thought it was going to be a cap or something. Turned out to be fulling that was molded to fit into my tooth, or something.
I think that is one way they do fillings here in Japan, mold it and then stick it in?
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the daily mundane or necessary errands and healthcare needs. So, I appreciate the end of your BLOG post. Although you had dental work, did not have a chance to take the ride you wanted, you still took time to stop and smell or take pictures of the beautiful flowers.
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