My Dentist is a Saint

Saint Apollonia is the patron saint of dentistry and of those suffering from tooth aches and dental ailments. She gained martyrdom during the age of the Roman Empire when a drunken mob of pagans took her captive. They brutally busted out all her teeth and threatened to burn her alive if she did not renounce her faith. Rather than commit blasphemy, she willingly embraced the flames.

While probably not as bad as a pagan assault, a generally poor lifestyle and the neglect from years of alcoholism had left my teeth in very bad shape. During my first year of recovery in the mid 90’s I was suffering from what turned out to be a severely impacted tooth and my new dentist was out of town for the weekend. He had arranged a prescription of painkillers to help me get by until he could see me, but did not realize the severity of my condition nor the fact that I was fairly adept at abusing pills. I did not fill the prescription, and proud of my discipline I prepared to tough the pain out (embrace the flames)… and failed miserably.

Around midnight I had caved and called my sister who is a pharmacist to see where I could get the prescription filled at such a late hour. She didn’t know of an all-night pharmacy, but mentioned that one of her friends from college was a newly minted dentist that was living in the same apartment complex. Maybe she might help me if I was truly suffering that bad. So at Oh-my-God it’s early in the morning I went knocking on the door of this dentist and with a little urging from my sister she actually opened it. She did more than just let me in; she loaded me up in her own car, opened up the office, and extracted the offending tooth. Oh yeah, did I mention she did all this for free.

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That is how I met a modern day saint of dentistry, Dr. Michelle Groves. Over the last decade and a half I have continued to see her on a semi-annual basis and tried to fill her waiting room with referrals. As much work as I have needed over the years her decision to fix me up for free the first time was a very good investment.

We laughed over this story today as she replaced some of the original work done so many years ago. Tonight my jaw is throbbing from the attention and my wallet is noticeably lighter, but I still feel like the luckiest man in the world for having such a great dentist.

So here’s a TDA salute to an absolutely wonderful woman whose selfless act helped me stay on the path of recovery during a very difficult time in my life. Thank you Michelle... and enjoy the vacation that my time in the chair today will most assuredly cover!