A DENTALOGUE
This is a dentalogue.
The thoughts and feelings on the experience of dental treatment in a foreign country.
Note I have refrained from the now common appellation `dental tourism` as this phrase suggests having a holiday and despite my glowing references for my dentists treatment, and more of their wonderfulness later, let me tell you when you are having major works on your teeth performed, it is not a holiday. A holiday should never encompass unedifying moments of exposure, vulnerability and embarrassment, discomfort, pain, lack of sleep; throw in a covid backdrop and add on askewed travel plans, re-arranged work schedules and all that on the foundations of fear of a lifetime of negative experiences with dentists; it`s Room 101 the stuff of dystopian nightmares. We all have our dental story, and more of that later too.
But indulge me for a moment whilst I reminisce back to a 14 year old hormonal small town Midlands lad, its lunch break sorting through the vinyl records in Smiths with the usual peer group on a wet autumnal day, there`s no footie in the playground and you`ve got maths next led by a nose picking Mr. Beasley and double `chem` to round off this, let`s face it, never ending gloom. It maybe the late `60`s but the only swinging thing is in the local park and it`s not with the opposite sex, Queens Road Nuneaton is no Carnaby Street. Flicking through the usuals, Colosseum, The Nice, The Tull, Spooky Tooth, Pink Floyd you come across Quicksilver Messenger Service, blimey lets have a decko at that one. Wow, now there`s a name to conjure with who the flippin eck are they. Dino Valenti, and John Cipollina, wowsa, double blimey…… stratospheric off the richter scale coolness..Just the names exude an exoticism and sensuality which might as well emanate from another planet. Although the coolest dudes in our class were already indulging in furtive back seat shenanigans during school trips evidently trying to bridge this cultural divide between West Coast America and the centre of England, it was just too much for me, this gap was too darn big, it was an unattainable dream and genuinely beyond my comprehension. Yes I could get a pair of Wrangler`s from the market slap on some patches cobbled together with some elder brothers hand me downs and at least make an attempt at Brit rock cool but West coast, Cipollina, Valenti, Quicksilver Messenger Service come on that’s just too much to handle.
Ah yes the dentalogue. Move on 7 years I`m now at college in a dental chair with a dentists knee in my chest. The knee is doubling up as a lever to extract an unhelpful molar whilst simultaneously keeping me pinned down as I scream in pain, this is not dentistry this is Victorian butchery the villain of the piece gets off on reruns of Marathon Man. Oh and why was the molar so difficult to come out…because it was an unnecessary extraction that’s why. A year later I`m four molars down; I`m 22.
Swiping the years by rapidly to 2020, I am now ambling along the car free cycle trails of Rovinj Croatia, luxuriating in the toujours azure Adriatic a warm breeze soothing my now Istrian soul, the pebbles dashing the mountain bikes tyres causing pleasing vibrations and Quicksilver comes to mind and the title of their second album Happy Trails. Happy Trails indeed, freedom, release, rejuvenation and recuperation. A literal and metaphorical Happy Trail the counterpoint to drab Midland days and a lifelong fear of dentisty and coming off the back of a more recent, shall we say, interesting two and a half hours in the dreaded Chair of dental room 2. Funny that long term memory thing.
And there`s the nub and moral of this dentalogue. Yes do your, homework, yes find out as much as you can about your dental choice, take advice and your time, send loads of e.mails, they want your business and they know there`s plenty of 60 year old plus Brits with awful teeth and loose jaws because of past dental malpractice and extortionate GB dental cost but don`t forget to find your Happy Trail to spoil yourself with.
If you are having implants be prepared to eat only soft foods there will be two stages of treatment with six months between and at the first stage of treatment drugs will be involved. Yep for a coupla days you`ll look like a chipmunk `eating` liquids sucking on your breakfast fruit whilst trying to work out what your name is; personally I administered two different anti-biotics mixed in with a liberal dose of painkillers and a smattering of sedatives, let me tell you not drugs of choice but drugs of necessity. In the final treatment there were so many injections that I was wandering about thinking my lips had either botoxed my whole face or had flown away. Remember though that would be the same wherever you are, once you`ve made the dental leap that`s part of the deal.
The choice for me was H. Dent a family run dentistry based in Rovinj, Istria, Croatia. Going foreign means you will save money so at this point weighing up the options and price no longer was in the equation, what swung it for me was their quick and reassuring responses, their professionalism, state of the art equipment, highly qualified doctors and experience in performing difficult and involved procedures. Subsequently I was put at ease by a balance between the equivalent of the warmth of the dental bedside manner, (cosiness would be pushing it…..not really in the dental lexicon) authority, professionalism and a busy waiting room. Importantly they were not judgemental, such a relief from the chronic disdain I always encountered from UK dentists – `Ah Mr. Clark we haven`t seen you for a while` given with that patronising withering tone and look designed to make you feel seven years old with your hand in the teeth rotting biscuit tin. Ivan the chief doctor provided a necessary assertiveness; I didn`t require tender hand holding I needed to be grasped and dragged into dental reality something he consummately performed when I had the wobbles on the first trip, when I could not sleep or think straight and was already eyeing up return flights at 4.00 a.m. in the morning of the first night…this is before any treatments, it was a severe case of the yips which Ivan coached me out of.
And the Happy Trail. H Dent are based in Rovinj a well known tourist centre on the Istrian coast with a 14,000 population swelling to 80,000 during non-covid peak times and deservedly, it`s difficult to deny Rovinj (a silent j please)……it`s place in the sun, it is strikingly beautiful on the eye and on the spirit.
It`s picturesque pulchritude undeniably attracts a certain amount of bling particularly around the modern sterile harbour, a cornea burning white stone expanse that exhibits the equivalent of water bound Rolexes. Yes there are harbour bars sporting West End prices, yes there are teenagers with attitude, all mardiness and mascara (when do the smile muscles develop?) and beach bars blaring out bland MOR Euro hip pop. But its not too hard to expose the true beauty and culture of the town and region, stick to the local bars you`ll get a pint for a coupla quid and a sublime morning expresso for half that and a shout out to Punta Cabana the beach bar with a difference and my coke refuge (fizzy, fully sugared up dears) where Mr. Hendrix blasted out amongst an impressive vinyl collection – Happy Trails indeed.
Then wander those few extra few yards past the decadent harbour nonsense and the hotel loungers and experience the core beauty of Rovinj the maritime rurality of the wonderful car free old town and its splendid cacophony of primary colours and faded textures, narcoleptic cats, blooming bougainvillea, flaking shutters, bizarre random sculptures ……it is a special place, where even the bus station roof has a swallow colony and the local supermarket has sparrows flitting in the aisles, and always toujours with that azure backdrop.
Walk the other way through dappled sunshine splashing through a forest of Holm Oaks and the close by Istrian landscape is full of textures displaying distant and modern echoes of the cultural past, palimpsests of successive invaders rulers and populations Illyrians / Slavs / Hapsburgs / Italians written across a subtropical landscape butting up against the always azure Adriatic. And the sounds, sounds that have spanned these generations those inveterate invertebrates cicada, laughing Caspian Gulls, chattering Jackdaws and always the lap of the Adriatic, the sea of stones and placidity, twenty metres out and your still waist deep it is so tranquil and calming that even the monkeys on my back decide to uproot and have a paddle. Oh and the spikey arid olive groves with the chance of a Shrike seeking a slinky lizard, indulgent wild pigs, Sand Martins dancing over harvested fields, and the seemingly random goat herds, luscious luminescent green cockchafers and Swallowtails on the trails with always that azure not too far away to comfort, subdue and cool down.
Wow it`s almost worth having rubbish teeth….almost.
Thank you H Dent, thank you Rovinj.
Happy Trails…Toujours Azure….Ciao.
DAVE CLARK Aug. 2020
Daves thoughts 