Grin & Share It

Happy New Year Y’all! I hope this past holiday season found you all well and in the company of your neighbors and friends. Isn’t that really what it’s all about? I love it. 

I recently found myself in a familiar situation in a familiar location. The location being on my back at the Flathead Valley Orthopedic Center. The situation involved taking X-Rays of my left knee. “I can only imagine how much that thing costs,” I mention to the X-Ray technician positioning the sensor underneath my left knee. His sensor was about one square foot while the sensors I use in my patient’s mouths are about one square inch. 

You see, I’ve been here before. Some time ago I had the displeasure of destroying my Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) in the final moments of an intense Rec-League basketball game. No worries however, my kind Doctor in San Francisco gave me another guy’s ACL and drilled it through my Tibia and into the head of my Femur. After rehab everything felt fantastic. Until I destroyed that one, and the one after that...which happened to be an Achilles Tendon functioning as my new ACL. 

Now was I frustrated? Absolutely. Was I surprised? No. Was I upset with the doctors that repaired my knee the first 2 times? No way. Was I upset with myself? Definitely. My second knee injury came at the bottom of a cliff-drop on Big Mountain, and my third knee injury came during a wakeboarding backflip attempt on Echo Lake. I was participating in high risk activities all the while being in denial that I was indeed…gulp…getting old.

As I relayed this wakeboarding story to my Knee Doctor he showed no signs of sympathy. “You’re not 20 years old anymore” he exclaimed. He then informed me that I’m at risk of “hollowing” out my femur from all of my prior knee surgeries. Each one requiring a hole to be drilled through the femoral head. I sheepishly accept responsibility and we exchange the look that lets the other know that we each already know the end of this story. This story ends with me having a full knee replacement at some point in the future.

A great comedian started a bit once by saying, “my cholesterol is high...because it was high a year ago when I had it checked and...well...I haven’t done anything different.” Famed German Physicist Albert Einstein has been quoted as defining insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” This is quite dramatic, my doctor probably doesn’t consider me insane but rather a little stupid at times. If I keep pursuing high risk activities I cannot expect anything different than frequent musculoskeletal injuries.

I walk a mile in my Doctor’s shoes daily. I stand on the receiving end of watered down dietary habits. I scrape the plaque off of gumlines. I inform my patients that their current habits along with multiple sites of tooth decay place them at high risk for caries, the disease that causes tooth decay. My team and I educate them with exasperation the techniques and habits required to tip the scales back towards health. We love our patients, but sometimes we exchange that glance that says we know the end of this story. We can only bail water out of a sinking ship for so long until the patient needs to pick up their bucket and join in on the fun. Otherwise it’s going to go down...slowly.

I’m going to let you all in on a little insider dental secret. We do not want our patients to have poor oral health in order to have some level of job security. Unfortunately, there is more than enough tooth decay to go around. It’s an exhausting, overwhelming, and sad epidemic. My favorite exam ends with me saying, “Teeth look great, gums are nice and healthy. Keep doing what you’re doing.” I love seeing a really amazing smile. I tell those patients that I wish I had their smiles. That their smiles are beautiful and they should share them. I’ve put my spin on the popular saying “grin and bear it” by encouraging the friendly folks of the Flathead to GRIN AND SHARE IT.

We’re starting a new year and I invite everyone to do something different, something new. We all have those activities that we wish we could do more of or even less of. Those behaviors that we wish would become a habit. Ultimately we wish to be healthier. Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually healthier. Which can’t help but make us happier and SMILE more. The world needs more smiles…share yours and let’s tip the scales towards happiness.

Happy New Year everyone. 

Read Grin & Share It by Dr. John F. Miller, DDS, in 406 Woman magazine.