My dental visit was a success, and here is hoping that the veneer stays retained onto the smallest tooth that I have in my mouth. That story and more coming up. But first, the morning began with a heavy downpour. The kind of rain that makes you want to stay in bed a little longer, wake up and have a slow, lazy, tranquilo (quiet) kind of day. But today was too important of a day to be lazy. I had to get to my dental appointment. First, since it was so wet outside, I decided to put on capri jeans. And with these jeans I needed that ONE belt I had packed to bring with me. Could I find the belt? No. I knew I had put it somewhere. Ray was watching tv (the upgrade is helping the speed a lot), but I just knew if he looked after I looked everywhere twice, he would find it. It was right where I had left it. Out the door we went, which can take a while because leaving the front door requires unlocking the big metal gate and then shutting the big heavy brown wooden doors, and then locking both the wooden and metal doors.
We arrived to Multibank at 8:30 and saw a couple with a baby waiting where we had sat last week. Not good. We would probably have to come back. No, Nizida (who speaks wonderful English but practiced Spanish with us) came to ask us to have a seat at her desk. We explained why we were there, and the girl next to her that we saw on our other visit, confirmed that she had our file. So we didn't get an email confirmation in English yesterday, but they did have our approval in the file. We could now complete the paperwork. We even saw amongst all the papers that the bank assistant at Wells Fargo in Stafford, VA had written our "in excellent standing since 1995" letter to them in Spanish. After transferring all of what we had filled out last week into the computer, and having us double check these papers, we were ready to sign the papers. In Panama, you want your signature to look exactly as it appears in your passport and on your drivers license and on your residency card. And she will look at every signature. So we signed eight times. And she made copies. This meant she then put her little round stamp in sixteen different places (next to all of our signatures) and then she signed inside these little round circles. We now had a file, a folder, which is huge in Panama! Ray then made a deposit which we found out has to be $1050 because this includes the checks, checkbook and two debit cards. He was told to go to the teller with three pieces of paper. Ray would keep one, and Nizida would get the other two back. Time to get her "jefe" (Boss) to sign off on all of these papers. Success. Next are our debit cards. She put all of the information into the computer and pulled out a blue metal box. Inside the box were our cards along with a red security card. Also were papers that held our personal and private pin numbers and passwords. We cannot have the same pin number for our cards. Another number to memorize. I am just now memorizing my phone number and passport number, but I am remembering them in English. Wrong. It is now 10:15, and my dental appointment is in fifteen minutes. We take a break, she is aware of what I have to get done, and off we go walking up the street and across the road to the dental office.
We arrive in time for me to fill out one piece of paper. The front page is my medical information along with name, address, birthday and also passport number. The back side has a dental chart with tooth numbers, so the dentist can draw things in and also write on the lines below the chart. I fill this out, hand it to the receptionist, and off I go right to the operatory. Wow! Of course, I take a picture. Everything is wrapped in saran wrap it looks like, the chair is a pretty green and solid, the walls are tranquil blue, and the entire operatory from tray set up to the counter resembles what I would see in the States. There is fluoride on the counter, Scope (meh), shade guide, my chart (the one piece of paper), cement, bonding agent, and on the tray in front of me is a mirror, explorer, pick ups, cement, there is a curing light (to "cure" the veneer or bond it in place), and alligator clips with bib cover. My dental comrades will get all of that, but essentially, the place looked great! Dr. Wong it turns out studied in Guatamala, Mexico. He is aware of my past history of being a dental hygienist. We talk dental talk. He explains why he loves veneers and why he doesn't love this one that I have turned over to him. And as I told him, hindsight being 20/20, I shouldn't have tried to fix something that wasn't broken and might never have come off in the first place. But I wanted to have a pretty tooth. He explained that the tooth is long and is taking a lot of force (hitting), and I wasn't wearing my guard which protects teeth from the grinding forces (I thought being here I was truly relaxed), the tooth was flexing and, therefore, the veneer separated and popped off. He explained a lot more, I agreed, and we discussed the future of this tiny tooth. He was more than happy to recement the veneer and try it again, but if it comes off again, I will need a crown. A crown will cover the entire tooth. He uses zirconium (the strongest material and what we use in the States), and the cost with my jubilado discount would be $600 (half of most offices near where I was working, but my office charged $975). Once we settled on trying to recement, he tipped me back, he hummed to me, he called out to his assistant at times for help (I think he had her come in the first time just to push the rheostat, or pedal, over to him haha, but I could be wrong), and I crossed my fingers during the cementation. He agreed and laughed. He did some drilling and that was mostly to create a bit more retention and to remove any old cement. Afterwards, we discussed my guard. He will "open it up a bit" since I wear it on the lower teeth. This might take pressure off this one tooth. He gave me Scope to rinse with, a paper towel, and took off my bib. We shook hands, and it was $20 with my Jubilado discount. I believe in the States recementation of a crown is either $45 or $60. Somewhere in there. Twenty minutes later, Ray and I hit errand number three.
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| Here is what is on the counter in the operatory. |
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This is the shopping center with the dental office (second floor all the way to the left)
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We had left the car at the bank, so we walked down the steps to the Jewelry and Cell store. Remember the scale was only $11. But since it didn't work, we bought a new battery. The scale now cost me $21. Lesson learned.
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| Joyeria & Cell for battery (owned by Chinese family but Spanish speaking) |
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| Up and over the highway to the medical lab for Ray |
Ray's turn to have some fun. We stopped at the medical lab for his blood to be taken for health insurance qualifications. He needed a PSA test. He checked in at the desk, paid $16 and within minutes (not even) he was called out of the lavendar reception room and into the "closet of a room with a disgusting chair to sit in" Ray tells me when I ask (I like details, can you tell?). This phlebotomist spoke a little English and wore gloves. All done. And Wednesday at noon he can pick up the results and scan them to our insurance broker. Meanwhile, we just found out she needs more numbers off this car we supposedly will get soon? The rental is driving me crazy.
Back to the bank thinking we would just have to pick up those debit cards. I decided to have a tiny cup of coffee, because it looked like we would be waiting a while. (Did I mention before that you have to open bags and purses to show the guard before entering the bank?). We were seated quickly, and now we had to enter passwords into the Multibank website in order to create our own passwords. Ray did his first on her laptop. I then did mine. My personal and private paper did not come with a secret number inside to enter into the system. Guess what this means. We tear that paper up, go to the metal blue box for a new secret number, and get the jefe's permission. Then I sign a form that I had been given another one of these papers, and she stamps and signs it. Cracking up inside here. They are very thorough which being positive is a great thing. We get our debit cards, and we are also handed a Multibank red security card. What do we do with the red card? Whenever we do a transaction online, we then are sent to a secured site. Here you look on the back of the card and there are letters across the top and numbers along the bottom (think "x" and "y" axis--okay, maybe not). In three separate boxes, the form might have D4, G1, B2. You look at your card and line up the letter to the number, and whatever number is in that box is the number you put in the little box on the screen. Pretty cool, we think. Just another measure of security. At noon, we were done. We had spent almost three hours total with Nizida today, along with the one hour the other day to open an account.
We drove to El Machetazo to look at fans and bought a few more supplies forgetting a few others at the same time. And we didn't buy a fan. But we also signed up for an El Machetazo discount card (when you accumulate points, you can get products and merchandise for less sort of like gas points at Giant Food in VA). Then we went to Novey (a small Home Depot or Lowes) to look at fans and also screening material. We are going to fabricate screening material for the sliding doors here at the house. Just to keep some things out. We walked out without anything (we have to measure the doors, but they did have the material). Final thing I thought about doing (so this makes several errands today in four hours) was to stop at the Gynecology office (yes, women need to be good about doing this yearly, and in October there is sale on mammograms haha). I went in all by my big girl self and made an appointment with the receptionist. I am allowing Ray to do too much of the talking, because I am trying to be fast and then I get flustered. The doctor speaks English, but she does not for the most part. She wants my passport number and phone number...again! She writes it all down and makes sure with me that she wrote it correctly. Then she says something really fast in Spanish! Did I mention I left my hearing aids behind? I think she told me she would call to confirm my appointment. Maybe that is what she told me.
Back at Casa 40, we finally got lunch, and we returned calls to the insurance broker and also booked flights with our Jubilado discount. Perhaps Ray can blog about his experience making air travel arrangements using the discount. There is a better breeze outside today than there seemed to be yesterday (for the little time we were home), so I put out that brand new tablecloth ($3.99) and sat outside under the ceiling fan which spins slowly over the table. The owner, and even Clyde in his own home, states that ceiling fans are difficult to balance and so they shake around too much. I caught the breezes but also was regretting not buying the stand up fan in any store that we have seen them in so far. This is why two showers or maybe three might be taken in any given day haha No complaints here though because my tooth is whole, my belly is full (oh dear, the scale now works), and after the downpour of rain, the sun is poking its head out.
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| The little yellow building is where we can have our blood work done instead of at the San Fernando Clinic which is in Coronado. Prettier, but pricier. |
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| Ray in the lavendar reception room checking in (there is a tv behind the girl) |
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