Dental dramas

I forgot to mention yesterday that I also made an unexpected trip to the dentist. You may remember the dental dramas I experienced back in March (see here) when a chunk of one of my molars fell out and I needed a large filling.

Well, in the last week or so I've been experiencing a little bit of discomfort, especially a feeling of "fullness", like I've got something stuck between my teeth up in the same area. Additionally the cold-sensitivity that developed back then has never gone away. As we're about to do a long trip out west, David advised me to go to a dentist here before we leave.

I'm glad I took his advice. The dentist, who I've never been to before, listened to my story then started probing around and shooting cold air between teeth. When he got to the tooth that was filled in March I nearly shot out of the chair. He drilled out that filling, which had taken three visits to acquire, and found more decay underneath it, as well as decay on the neighbouring tooth.

Conditioned by the Japanese method of dentistry, I expected I'd have to come back at least one more time for the fillings, but he did it right there and then. I was impressed, though I'm getting close to losing the tooth, however, so much of it has been drilled away!

Doing it all in English, however, was so easy. Times like that really make me miss living in an English speaking country.

The conversation strangers who discover that we live in Japan usually goes something like this:

"You live in Japan. How long have you been there?"
"Nearly 12 years."
"Oh, you must like it there."
"Well, we've gotten used to it. We love coming back to Australia though."
"You speak the language?"
"Some. Enough to get by, but there's lots I can't understand."
"My nephew's going there for a couple of weeks at the end of the year. He loves Japan."

I find it slightly odd that people assume we really like Japan. I guess that is the only reason they can quickly come up with for someone choosing to live there instead of Australia. It is also odd that the conversation is almost the same every time.

I'm thankful that this dentist didn't get upset that we are missionaries. We once had an experience of an Australian dentist going off about, "Leaving people to their own religion . . ." That kind of passion is a bit scary when he is the one with the needle and drill!