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one thing leads to another

2012-01-27 -

For years I have been trying to see a dentist who didn�t charge as much as most LA dentists do, and one who does things like remove the mercury from your mouth safely. So we drove to Tijuana this past weekend, to a place that�s at least worthy of mentioning. I�ve been reading about this particular medical center for a couple of years�. they�re very reputable and people come from all over the world to see them. The short version is they help people get better care, much less expensively. The longer version is that they follow a specific protocol (Hal Huggins protocol) that very few dentists do � which ensures that they won�t screw you up more than you were before in the process, and it actually ends up boosting your health. I believe that mercury/silver/amalgam fillings or any metal (or root canals) in your mouth can lead to disastrous health, and I�ve spoken to so many people and read so many books on the topic of the dangers of mercury, I could probably do a speaking tour on it. There�s a guy named Russ that I spoke to years ago about it � he has an entire website dedicated to the topic of toxic dentistry and on his site tells the story of how he and his coworker�s lives completely changed for the better after (safely) removing their mercury. There are hundreds of other accounts of people saying the same thing on his site, and in other places.

Most (but not all) dentists will tell you that having silver/amalgam fillings are safe, and that you�re ridiculous to think otherwise. After that, you might notice them putting latex gloves on and carefully placing any leftover silver material they used on you into a bright orange bio-hazard box like they were dismantling a grenade.

I read an article written by a doctor once, and he was quoted as saying �not once in my entire career have I ever seen a cancer patient that didn�t have mercury in their mouth.� And who wants to be a statistic? I�ll tell you who doesn�t.

The really cool thing about the place was that the director came to pick us up at the border. It was a quick trip to the center after that, and the building is actually very nice. There�s a 4 star hotel right next to it for when they knock you out with an IV drip and you can�t drive home. I like getting knocked out because when I�m awake I think way too much and become convinced they�re in the process of killing me, or I�m going to die by their hands in some way I hadn�t considered. To exemplify, here are some of the scenarios I�ve imagined over the years while sitting in dentist chairs: a) a fire drill or earthquake starts, and everyone has to be evacuated, only I can�t leave because I�m still hooked up to the IV knockout machine, and obviously can�t move. Who�s going to carry me outside on that day? B) While I�m knocked out, the dentist allows his intern to practice on me, and the intern doesn�t remember the technique he / she is trying to do. When I wake up, I have no face. And these are just a couple of examples. C) While drilling, the dentist slips with his drill and hits an �instant kill nerve� in my mouth that no one�s ever heard of aside from karate experts and military personnel. D) The dentist is exhausted from his week, or had an argument with his family, or is simply feeling lazy, and �tunes out for a bit� while working on me. Curtains again!

I�ll stop there.

Tijuana isn�t necessarily a place I�d want to hang out, although it wasn�t bad in the daylight. I�ve seen worse. They do things differently there I guess; once we were there for a while, got x-rays, price quotes, etc etc. and it was time to go, the director asked if his friend could drive us back over the border because he was still working. It was really no problem, and when the friend emerged from behind some door, I was relieved to see that she was definitely human, with two arms for driving. So we walked out with our new friend, down into the parking garage and into her car, and I wondered if she wondered who the hell we were. I didn�t want to sit in the front, because I preferred to stare out the window in the back and/or fall asleep because we had been up since 4:30am and drove 150 miles to get there. My husband wasn�t into it.

�You should really sit in the front � this place was your idea.�

She was very chatty and nice, and she and my husband spoke a little Spanish and discussed some obscure alcoholic drink that I never heard of, that they both liked, while I yawned. Then he stared out the window in the back and ceased talking, leaving me to carry on the rest of the conversation with this very bubbly and charming Latina that neither of us knew anything about, except that she couldn�t find that drink anywhere. You know when you really want to talk, or even listen, but you just have nothing left in you as far as output? I had nothing left that day, and just wanted to cruise back over the border and take the obligatory150 mile ride back home. Without thinking. But I learned a lot about her: she was a business partner to the director, she was headed to Hollywood, had a deck building business, once had a friend secretly smuggle a huge bag of pot in her car before crossing the border without telling her, and she liked to listen to country. We listened to a lot of it in her car. I like to listen to country too, ever since the year I lived in the middle of the desert alone, and could only tune into either country or metal on the radio. I chose country, and now we�re like old friends.

Then she played some kind of Farsi dance music, and I thought I recognized some of the words, so I said

�Hey it sounds like they�re speaking Spanish, doesn�t it?�

They both said �No� in unison and I looked back out the window, praying they�d keep talking to each other. They did not.

We were now stuck in deadlocked traffic, about � mile before the border. I could see the border, but we were in it for the long haul. I estimated there were at least an hour�s worth of cars in front of us. I was slightly off by two and a half extra hours. The most exciting thing I saw in that time was a young skinny guy running and ducking behind the guardrail next to us, trying to sneak in (or out).

Since we were stopped anyway, all of the street vendors strolled by the car, one by one to tempt us with their highly un-saleable goods. Every time a vendor came up to the (open) window and desperately held up a churro or a stuffed animal, or a bandana, she�d say �No, gracias� and then tell me what it was they were selling. One guy tried to shove a bloated looking Hello Kitty stuffed animal through the window.

�You see there are all kinds of things to buy here�.this one here is the Hello Kitty, a very cute and popular doll� no, gracias, senor! And see that framed art he�s holding up? No, gracias! And that one is a painting of the Mother Mary�.no, no, gracias! and this woman is holding a colorful Mexican shawl�no, gracias�and that one��

I thought, instead of saying �no gracias� each time, why don�t we just shut the fucking window and call it a day?

A couple of minutes later, completely out of the blue, she started coughing and choking. I knew it wasn�t life-threatening because she was talking, but it still scared the hell out of me. In second grade, our school had first-aid choking posters hanging up on the wall that said

�If the victim can breathe or speak, do not administer the Heimlich maneuver�. I paid very special attention to that poster, hoping I would never have to deal with that any other kind of victim.

And she wasn�t choking on anything in particular; she said she must have just breathed in wrong. I kept asking her if she was ok, and she said she was, and apologized, and then kept choking. I felt terrible � and turned around to see if there was any water somewhere in the car, because now she had tears running down her face. Where the *$& was the water? There was none. Then it dawned on me that we were sitting in the middle of a massive border sale after all, and someone must be selling water. But I didn�t know if they took pesos, or dollars, or what? I barely speak Spanish, although I do try, and it can sound impressive if you�re six years old or simple-minded, por ejemplo.

I didn�t have anything but a debit card on me and told her to quick give me change or something and I�d run out and find a drink. She handed me a bill that had the number 20 on it, but it was a Mexican bill. 20 of what, exactly?!? My husband handed me a US $5, and I opened the door into the frenzy and realized that I suddenly forgot how to ask for water. 6 vendors rushed the car and held up a few haphazard objects. I pointed at the water behind them, and a woman asked me something in Spanish. I had no idea what she was saying. Our poor driver had to translate for her, in between wheezing and trying to breathe.

�She � ss..said � do you want - cold � or � room temp?�

I paid her, grabbed the water, the driver drank it, and her life was saved. She dropped us off at our parking lot and we thanked her, and told her to come to his restaurant for the drink they kept talking about, because he makes it there.

On the car ride home, he said

�They do know the word �water�, by the way. It�s the border, they�re doing this all day.

I thanked him for his input.

A few days later, my husband came home and said she actually did show up to the restaurant for the special drink. But this time, she had (another) business partner dining with her. At some point that night she pulled out some coffee packets and tried to convince my husband to sell it like she and her partner did. He didn�t have the heart to tell her no, and went and made her that special drink. So she gave him some samples anyway. It�s terrible coffee. Not that I�d know, I gave coffee up 2 weeks ago.

So she drank the obscure drink and loved it.

But she didn�t choke on it.

Then she and her business partner went on a tour of the restaurant with a busboy, and left.

I can�t say I understand why life is sometimes so completely random.

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