New Zealand life

Section 161 Entry 0001. Date: 2005 August 23 Tuesday.
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I asked my dentist if dentists ever get bitten by their patients. It had occurred to me that perhaps this was a common occupational hazard in the dentistry trade, but he said, no, he'd never heard of such a thing. Apparently he himself has never been bitten by a patient, although one extremely bad tempered eight-year-old girl did make threatening biting motions shortly before she stormed out of the surgery and went off down the corridor swearing in all directions.

Anyway. Today, some months after the incident in which I broke a tooth in half while eating spaghetti, I was fitted with a crown (aka a cap). I'm told it will take the gums a couple of weeks to grow up around the cap, but the tooth is okay to use for moderate eating (no chewing on chop bones or anything like that) right now. The prohibition on heavy-duty eating runs out in, I think, twenty-four hours.

The disappointing news is that although the cap itself should last a lifetime, the glue will probably only last for ten years or so, at which point the tooth will start to get loose and will have to be reglued. I was really expecting a permanent fix. Still. It's nice to have the tooth business behind me.

The cost was NZ $450 last time (when the tooth was shaped to take the cap and a mold was made for the making of the cap) and $475 this time. Plus there was an earlier visit at which I paid some money to have my teeth cleaned and X-rayed. So, all up, roughly a thousand dollars.

Having spent all this money on dentistry, I'm hoping I live long enough to get my money's worth. I had an MRI scan of my brain yesterday, Monday, and should get feedback on that when I meet with my radiation oncologist on Thursday 8 September.

The next significant development in my life, all going to plan, will be an operation on the right eye to do two things. First, remove the jelly from the eye, since the jelly is full of so much garbage (dead cells and stuff) that my vision is pretty misty, to the point where it is sometimes difficult to read the names on street signs even if I'm standing right in front of them. And, second, to remove the lens from the right eye, since the lens is developing a cataract, and replace the lens with a plastic one.

If the operation goes to plan and I make a good recovery, then I should end up with one and a half eyes. The right one should be fine. As for the left one, that eye, which was virtually blind back in December, has now recovered to the point where I can use it for word processing. With a little effort, true, but it's workable.

So, at this stage, I'm anticipating that I should be able to clear up my medical issues here in New Zealand and head back to Japan in December.

Meantime, my wife writes from Japan about ongoing developments in the life of baby Cornucopia, my daughter. Who will probably have no idea who I am when she next gets to meet me. One thing that Cornucopia is developing, apparently, is willpower.

My wife writes that now baby Cornucopia "has strong will".

"If she can't do what she want to do she screams and cries from the hell forever."

Good. It's a tough world and no place for the faint of heart.

So, I had the MRI scan, got the tooth capped, and internally registered the fact that my baby daughter is continuing to develop ... in a world distant from me.

Near at hand, in the routine quotidian world that I inhabit (get up, hit the keyboard, go for a walk, sleep, get up again the next day) the only real news is that my mother has finished a major embroidery project, a quilt which reflects our extended family's diverse roots and connections, with pictorial elements relating to England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, China and Kiribati.

Once I can get a digital photo of the quilt I aim to put it here.

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