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Melissa & Dave - Adventures at Sea

Bob gets new teeth

When Bob and Patty arrived, Patty (a heart surgeon’s assistant) was curious about health care down here.  She asked whether we try to take care of all our medical appointments, dentist appointments, and so forth before we came down here.  Quite the opposite we explained.  Melissa had just been to have her teeth cleaned last week, and it was $40 USD.  Cheap and great service.  The dentist herself did the cleaning, most trained in the US, and they have modern equipment like ultrasound cleaning equipment.  Bob then explained that he had a tooth that needed a repair that the dentist said would cost $600 after insurance.  Melissa said casually, “yeah probably be $100 here”.  Patty then pressed on, “What about cosmetic stuff?  I’ve always wanted Bob to have his front teeth fixed”.  Melissa offered to make an appointment so they could get a quote – having already decided to come back next year for their vacation!  So Monday morning she called and the dentist had an opening that same day.  So we headed into Bucerias – a 20 minute drive.  The dentist explained that she would fix the tooth for $40, do a whitening for $50, and do veneers for his two eye teeth for $700.  Blink, blink.  Wow.  That’s nearly what the dentist back home was going to charge just to fix the one back tooth.  So we asked how long the process would take.  She asked when Bob was leaving – to which we replied Friday.  She said – I can do the fixing of the tooth in the back, the whitening, and the prep for the veneers tomorrow, and the veneers installation on Thursday.  Blink, blink.  Wow.  Ok.  So Bob decides to go for it.

The next day, Bob remembered the dentist back home saying something about his eye tooth not having enough root to do a veneer.  So when we reached the dentist office, we reported that to the dentist.  She got out the X-Ray machine, and in a matter of minutes was reviewing the film with Bob and Patty on her computer screen – showing them that the root was just fine.  So work proceeds.

Meanwhile, Melissa and Patty went shopping for blankets.  Melissa has wanted some blankets for the foot of the beds.  She needs a teal one, orange one, and a yellow-green one.  We shopped around Bucerias.  We found one of the stalls in the shops near the central square where a kid swore to us that they didn’t make the blankets the way Melissa wanted – in an effort to convince us to buy the ones he had on hand.  Melissa laughed – yeah they do.  So scramble ensues.  A blanket in teal shows up exactly as Melissa had described!  Then more negotiating – they think they can get the other ones from the brother’s shop in Puerto Vallarta.  Uh huh.  Right.  Patty and Melissa stroll along.  Only to be met on the other end of the shops by the same kid – holding an orange blanket – even better than what Melissa had originally described.  He had run all through the shops ahead of us to find the right blanket.  Good on ya kid!  We knew we would likely have located the blanket further along – but boy that kid could hustle and who could blame him?  There are so few people here this year that the shop owners are really hurting.  So what if we paid a bit more than we should have?  When we tried to negotiate – he said “stop being so Mexican!”  Ok, you get paid just for making us laugh.  That’s two blankets down.  Still looking for the third…

 

We return to retrieve Bob from the dentist, who informs us that the veneers might be ready a day early – tomorrow.  Sure enough, Wednesday morning at 9am they call to report the veneers are done.  This time Dave drives Patty and Bob back to Bucerias.  At which point the dentist says “I made you the veneers as promised.  But we thought that actually a whole set of front veneers would be better.  So we made them for you so you could see.  You can have the originals installed as planned, or you can do this full set for $1000 more.”  Some quick internet research reveals that the price back in the US would likely have been $10,000 for this work.  After some debate, Bob and Patty decide to go for it.

Judge for yourself – here are the before and after pictures!

    

 

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