Twenty-four hours ago, I was in downtown Stuttgart, lying on my back, as our trusty German/American dentist, Dr. Blair, was applying a dental dam to my mouth, as he told me about his ancestry. It was the first time in a long time since I’d had any fillings done. And I don’t remember any of my previous dentists using a dental dam when I did have them done. I think previous dentists were more likely to only use them for crowns.
I knew this drama was coming. Six months ago, when Bill and I last went to Stuttgart to see Dr. Blair, he said he didn’t like the looks of the filling in my last remaining baby tooth, on the bottom left side of my mouth. I’d last had it filled in 2013, when we first moved to Texas. The tooth above it– also a baby tooth– had a cracked filling, which the Texas dentist repaired. She said she believed the other baby tooth needed a new filling. I was worried, in 2013, that the baby tooth wasn’t going to survive another repair, but my previous dentist assured me it would make it through the procedure. She refilled the tooth. I thought it would be for the last time, since it’s a baby tooth.
One year later, we moved to Stuttgart, and the top tooth that had had the cracked filling promptly abscessed. It had a fractured root. I didn’t have pain, because there was an exit for the infection. However, this wasn’t a condition I wanted to let go for too long. Once Bill had dental insurance again, we visited Dr. Blair for the first time. He eventually pulled the abscessed top baby tooth, and in 2016, I got a spiffy dental implant, which has worked perfectly. I know that eventually, I’ll need another implant. Hopefully, Dr. Blair can do that one, too.
Fast forward to yesterday. I was worried about the baby tooth surviving yet another filling, because it’s 50 years old, and was never meant to work for so long. But after 45 minutes in the chair, the work was done. About 45 minutes after that, my teeth were clean and smooth, although my mouth was still numb for about four hours. Bill also had to have a little work done, but his work didn’t require any novocaine.
Lately, I’ve been choosing to pair our visits to Dr. Blair’s office with excursions to places we haven’t yet been. For instance, we’ve done two Black Forest trips and a trip to a part of Alsace, France, we hadn’t yet visited. We decided to stay in Stuttgart this time, because we weren’t just having cleanings done. Next time we see Dr. Blair, unless there’s a problem, we’ll probably go somewhere else relatively nearby that we haven’t been to yet. Maybe my German friend, Susanne, will finally see us visit her hometown of Freiburg. I’ve been trying to arrange a trip there for years!
The trip to see our fabulous dentist was the main reason we went back to Stuttgart over the weekend. However, we had other reasons for going back “home” (Stuttgart has been “home” for us for six out of twenty years of marriage). The fact of the matter is, Stuttgart is a pretty nice place to visit. We made a valiant attempt to see a lot more of it during our most recent four year stint living there, but there are still a lot of places we haven’t been. There are also places we wanted to see again.
Over the weekend, we managed to visit a couple of new places, as well as a place we hadn’t seen since 2008, when we lived in the Stuttgart area the first time. We stayed in the Wald Hotel, our favorite Stuttgart area hotel, albeit in their “suite”, which we’d never tried before. I believe it was our fifth stay at the Degerloch four star accomodation, located near a sports complex and the famed Fernsehturm (TV tower).
We ate good food, drank lots of libations, experienced just about every kind of weather, bought a new rug, met new people, listened to music, picked up souvenirs for Bill’s grandchildren, and spent plenty of euros. I got pictures, too. So I hope you’ll come along with me on my latest jaunt to our old stomping grounds… Maybe you’ll learn something new… or just be entertained. Or maybe not.
I’m just happy my smile is bright again, and my tooth is fixed. Turns out it wasn’t as bad as Dr. Blair thought it was. Stay tuned for part two!
Featured photo is yet another 3D city model… I just saw the one for Wiesbaden a couple of weeks ago. Now I seem to see them everywhere. 😉