Screen Test

  Part of this year's resolution to get some projects wrapped up is doing the medical stuff. I normally prefer to do these one at a time, but this year individual procedures repeated visits and timing was important on a couple as well.

The dental work was thrust on me sooner than wanted when an old crown broke off, taking what was left of the tooth with it, meaning I couldn't just have a new one put on. While I was having that checked out, I got a general checkup and found 3 cavities on the other side of my mouth. I decided to have them taken care of first, so I would have at least one useable side of my mouth fairly quickly. But the appointment to fill those cavities was only long enough to deal with one. Why didn't they tell me that only one was being done? So I made sure they scheduled a long enough time slot to take care of both remaining fillings on my next visit. On that next visit I had to wait a rather long time because an emergency had come up that had to be dealt with immediately. And took up enough time that they would only work on one of my teeth.

Anyway, after the three cavities were finally filled, I made an appointment with an oral surgeon to pull the root of my broken tooth. I had to wait three months for that to heal before they would put in the implant. Three more months to heal before they would put a crown on the post. Final step was accomplished last week.
 

 
Early on in that mess I had reached the time for my yearly skin cancer screening, an appointment I'd made a year ago at my last one. The dermatologist was rather rushed, not doing a very good job in my opinion, and had to be talked into checking a lump on my arm where basel cell carcinoma had been previously excised. He did a sloppy job of taking a sample resulting in quite a loss of blood on my part, with a bunch of stitches in my arm, and a big mess in the examination room. I was still glad he had checked it because I once again had basel cell. I had to make another appointment for a different doctor to carve it out. I still have a big divot in my arm. The two pictures above are a couple of days after the operation and then a couple of days after the stitches came out.

This year, for the health insurance I get through work, I had to visit my primary care physician for a regular check up, but I wanted to wait until my stitches were out, so more waiting, but there was a deadline, so not too much waiting allowed. I also got the pcp to arrange a colonoscopy. There's a family history of cancer, so I try to be very proactive. No polyps were found.






I still have to get new glasses, I'm going only six months between skin cancer screenings because of my recent operation, and the oral surgeon wants to check out how the dentist did in putting in my crown, but I think I am doing good in getting all this taken care of.