Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
A Long-Delayed Dental Visit
22 April 2025
Today's big event was a noontime dental appointment. It had been nearly a year since Joyce had her teeth cleaned after she canceled her last three-month appointment. So, yes, this was a big event.
I washed the car in the morning and drove over to help her get up. There was no parking in the lot because on Tuesdays the facility has its staff meetings to discuss all the patients. Even the doctors show up. So I had to double park and run in.
I told Julian, the Transport Guy, I was double parked if anyone had to get around me. No problem, he said. All the transports do it.
When I got to the room, Binita was just finishing the dressing change. She had already helped Joyce get dressed. So I just had to get her shoes on and help her into the wheelchair.
Julian stopped me as we rolled by the main desk to give me a copy of her medical record in case the dentist wanted to know her current medications.
Then I took her to the parking lot and moved the car so she could get in.
Julian came out to tell me he had heard she qualified for Medi-Cal, so he said he could drive her in her wheelchair to her debridement tomorrow. I had asked hi a few days ago about taking her to the dentist because it's in Daly City. But he said he couldn't do it.
"In San Francisco?" I wanted to confirm. He confirmed. But I wasn't inclined to accept because I thought I should try it myself. We left it up in the air.
He stuck around to make sure "the wheelchair fit" in the trunk, but it was never in doubt. "I've done this before," I confided.
It's only a 15-minute ride to the dentist in Westlake Mall. Joyce thought it was an ordeal to go all the way to Daly City, but we were already in Daly City, of course. So I have no idea where she thought we were.
I snagged a wide van handicap space in the parking garage, got the wheelchair out, and reassembled it. Then I got her in it, lifting her out of the chair when she couldn't stand.
Dr. Cheng had encouraged Joyce to brush regularly with an electric toothbrush, so I asked her to write an order for that because the SNF just doesn't bother with dental care.
It's one elevator down in the garage, a roll over to the adjacent building, and an elevator up to the second floor of the medical building. Sort of an amusement ride if you're in your seventies.
We signed in and waited for the new hygienist to invite her in. She filled out the patient's form, but where it asked for changes in her health since her last visit and a list of her medications, she just wrote "see attached." I'd already given them the medical record Julian gave me.
We were half an hour early, so it was good to have something to do. I even made an appointment for myself in May. And took a picture of Joyce in front of the magazine rack, which it seems every dentist has, to prove she went to the dentist.
But Joyce was very nervous the whole time, worrying about one thing or another. Like getting in the exam room chair. I promised I would help. Several times.
It was, it turned out, a tight fit to get the chair next to the dental chair, but we got close enough to lift her onto it.
Then I waited in the waiting room. I could hear her howls as the hygienist cleaned her upper teeth. Then she went on to the bottoms, with less howling. For her part, the hygienist didn't panic but plugged on.
Dr. Cheng took a look at her after the hygienist had finished. I could overhear some of the conversation but wanted to discuss it with Dr. Cheng. She's OK for now, she said, although they had been watching some teeth on her left side.
Dr. Cheng had encouraged Joyce to brush regularly with an electric toothbrush, so I asked her to write an order for that because the SNF just doesn't bother with dental care. If I don't help her brush, she doesn't brush. So she wrote the order to have her brush twice a day with an electric toothbrush. We'll see what happens.
We drove to the house afterward so I could run in to get her AA-powered Quip instead of her rechargeable Oral-B and some toothpaste and floss. I thought the Quip would be sufficient and not missed if it disappeared.
When we returned to the SNF, I got Joyce out of the car and into the wheelchair and back in her room before I parked the car and gave the order to the RN, who promised to take care of it.
Back in Joyce's room, I gave her the Quip and told her it vibrates for 30 second four times so she should brush each quarter section of her teeth until she feels the signal to move on. Then I suggested she turn it on.
She couldn't. It is a funny little button under the waterproof skin of the toothbrush. But not that hard to find. She just couldn't do it. So I'm hoping the CNA, LVN and RN can figure it out.
Tomorrow we'll try it again when I take her to her debridement on Geary. I'm giving Julian the day off.