Wednesday, June 16, 2010

My friend has a story to tell you

You have to double click on this picture! (If you have a weak stomach, DO NOT double click on it.)

Hey all,

Do you ever feel like you are having one of those weeks?

I have decided to put the kibosh on the Working with Family blogs. I try hard to tell you the facts in order to give you information that might help a potential buyer and a potential seller in the future. I tried to stay even keeled. I tried not to give you the information that made me look good and my dad look bad. I just wanted to help. That's all.

My wife told me that it was good but I probably shouldn't have written a blog about it. As you might have guessed, my father and I have very different personalities. He is kind of quiet and private and I am....well you know.


I have always felt that if I told you everything about me then you could "know" me. Hey - it might not all be pleasant, but at least you will know the whole me and not just the me that I want you to know about.

But my father is a bit more reserved than I am, and I respect that. I will tell you about it after it is all done.


I know it was a good topic because we had a lot of comments (for and against, mean and nice). I appreciated them; they make me think. I try to check myself to see if I am being selfish. (I am telling you, this is great therapy for me). Anyway, let's move on.

I wanted to tell you about a story about a friend dentist of mine. (By the way, whenever I am going to talk about something that might get me in trouble, from now on it is going to be "about a friend of mine". So you might be hear a lot about my "friends" from now on.)

He had a patient walk into his office about 5 years ago. She came in like any other patient. They did a new patient exam. In the initial interview he found out that she was the mother of a VERY famous professional boxer.


Of course, he was enamored and couldn't think during the rest of the appointment. My friend is s huge sports fan. He kept thinking, "Man, I might get to meet this guy."


Anyway, he did the exam and her mouth was a mess. I think he said she had three teeth on the maxilla and eight teeth in the mandibule.





She was wearing an upper partial that she hated and she didn't even wear a lower because it was uncomfortable. During the interview, they talked a lot about what she wanted. She said her son was going to pay for her teeth and she wanted them "all fixed."


She said she didn't want to lose any more teeth and she wanted to restore her mouth with implants.They spoke at length about what that meant in terms of money time. I think my friend said she had a very low dental IQ and all the info was a little overwhelming for her.


So she left and he waxed up the whole thing, and came up with a real nice treatment plan. It involved a multi-discipline approach. I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was a bunch of implants and some bridge work.


The second appointment was just a talking appointment. "This is what I found in your mouth and these are our options to fix them," kind of thing.


She drove up in a Bentley. Yes, the $100,000 kind. I know my friend is not supposed to judge people, but her son is a professional boxer and she rolls up in a Bentley. He was thinking this was going to be a slam dunk. "This treatment plan is no more than ONE of the tires on her car," he thought.

So they talked. It was a lot of education, trying to raise her dental IQ. She kept saying, "Yeah, I want that." She loved the wax up and said there wouldn't be a problem with any of it.


I think I heard my friend say, "If that [expletive deleted] can afford a Bentley, he can afford to pay for his momma's teeth." He was shocked, but excited about doing the work.



First, the temporary phase. He was going to put her in a temporary bridge and a Valplast partial (this is an all acrylic partial that is not meant for long term use), with a full round house temp on the bottom. She scheduled her next appointment.


Now, he told her that the first stage IS ONLY TEMPORARY. He thought he had made this perfectly clear. So they scheduled an appointment to make all this stuff happen. My friend was so excited. Man did that change real soon.


I will tell you more about it on Friday.

Hope you are having a good week.
john

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like your friends. lol Having friends talk about their problems is a great idea.

phoenix dentist said...

Those might be the nastiest looking teeth I've seen in your picture.

gatordmd said...

Phoenix,
Read today's blog. They will get better.

Thanks for reading.
john

Anonymous said...

John, Thanks for you blogs about working with family. I am in a very similar situation (work with my father, never "the right time" to buy in, no firm contracts, etc, etc) but about 10 years behind you. It is interesting to see what the future may hold and maybe learn from your experiences.

gatordmd said...

It is my pleasure.
If my story resonates with just one person (and I know most of them hit home with a lot of people) I have done my job.

Thanks for reading and commenting.
john

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