It’s Friday, and I sort of played hookey from the serious business of this blog. Sometimes, with this stuff, you’ve got to take a breather.
So, instead of the usual terrible quotes from terrible people here are some cats being cats.
Also, while I have you all here, a giant THANK YOU to everyone who has donated. And if you haven’t, the We Hunted the Mammoth Fourth Quarter Pledge Drive continues!
Donate using the button below; you don’t need a Paypal account, and Paypal can handle all sorts of non-US currency. Also, don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz. Thanks!
And now, without further ado, here are more kitties!
Teeth are easy to care for as long as they stay healthy, but cannot be fixed without professional intervention. And when they hurt, they hurt can lead to people not eating, missing work, or going into debt to make the pain stop (all things that happened to my dad). And if one is suffering from malnutrition (as many poor people are even in wealthy countries), or eating a lot of over-sugared prepackaged foods (which are cheap and plentiful), or can’t afford floss or even toothpaste, “easy to care for” gets tricky (and of course, this leads to people who can least afford to get cavities getting more cavities, because poverty).
And when a tooth goes bad, it can really go bad. A cavity which reaches into the living parts of the tooth is likely to get infected, and while it’s not common, this infection can spread from there into your bloodstream and make you very ill or even kill you. At best, it’ll cost you a lot more money than getting the cavity fixed would have (although at least treating the sepsis would be covered by health insurance).
And like, I don’t just need braces for cosmetic reasons. The crowding in my mouth is literally forcing my teeth out through the front of my gums. I’ve already had to have one gum graft, and I’m only 30 (and I was damn lucky to be able to afford that).
Dentistry: it’s actually pretty important.
I keep forgetting vision isn’t always covered, either. One of the perks of living in more progressive states, I guess. Seems like another one of those things that’ll impact the poor disproportionately, since you need to pass a vision test to drive, and most Americans need to drive to get to work (or at least have far fewer jobs to choose from without a car).
Addition: yes, dentistry is covered below age 18 in New Zealand, and accidents that damage mouth/jaw/teeth are covered under our ACC system (since 1974). There is no equivalent cover for optometry. Under our welfare system, poor people (including those in work) can get grants, but they’re more likely to do a loan. How the loans are supposed to be paid back is beyond me.
I’m one of those people who can’t floss. My teeth are so close together that floss does not slide down between them. I had been wrenching the floss down, cutting my gum every time, until the dentist said I was running more risk from permanently damaging the gum than I was from not flossing.
*no equivalent cover for optometry up to age 18 years. Damage to eyes from accidents (but not medical issues) are covered by ACC.
I’m getting a kick out of all my car owner friends on FB posting pics of their cats decked out in holiday gear. It’s not the fact that the cats are all dressed up that’s entertaining, so much as the expressions of sheer hatred on those cats’ faces. “Sleep with one eye open,” is a recurring comment on these posts.
Seriously, autocorrect, did you just change cat to car for no damn reason?
Ugh.
I was confused there for a second, trying to figure out if it was being in the car that was making the cats so angry.
Yeah, we don’t get dental or eye care automatically covered in Canada. My mother thankfully has always worked in a public sector, so she had decent dental insurance coverage, that way even when she had to struggle for money, she could still afford a yearly exam for us. I’ve had a friend who wasn’t so lucky, and when she needed to get a root canal treatment done, she waited until the pain became unbearable before getting checked, and it was costly.
And not a pic, but possibly my favorite cat video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjzd320gew
I really really love videos of cats discovering treadmills.
Why you need dental care.
The US is so sanctimonious when it comes to covering things considered “cosmetic” that when my son had horrible eczema on his body and face that started getting infected, the steroid cream for his face wasn’t covered since that was considered cosmetic, but his body cream was.
Ignoring what bullshit that is, the rash on his face was the infected one! It was the one with the major route into vulnerable parts of his system! But fuck no, not covered cause it might keep him from being visibly identifiable as one of the lower classes.
Sunnysombrera:
My girlfriend had to have like eight teeth removed to keep her jaw from dislocating. My cousin had teeth growing out of his hard palate. It’s serious stuff that gets neglected because a side effect is that you get prettier, which is unacceptable.
David, you have to add “manfeels park” (manfeels-park.com) to misandry central. If you haven’t checked it out, you must! There are some awesome cartoons on Gamergate if you go back a few entries.
Teeth infections are probably one of the number one historical causes of death, seeing how close they are to the brain.
They’re one of the diseases that show in skeletal remains, whether it’s tooth wear from a coarse diet or caries caused by a refined one. There are horrific levels of pain from dental decay.
Actually, teeth can get damaged more easily than you think. I’ve stopped eating chewy mints, because twice they have pulled a chunk of my teeth out. Yes, totally healthy tooth, a chunk has been pulled out by a mint.
What irks me is when extremely pricey repair work breaks easily. Happened to me once – a porcelain crown (there was more porcelain than tooth) broke out a couple of weeks after I’d got it, when I was eating a chicken sandwich. You could hardly get anything softer than that, but the damn thing just came out and was gone before I could stop it.
Yet some teeth show no desire to go at all – I still have one of my baby teeth!
I do have one crown. Mainly cos my parents insisted. I could have easily gotten used to the gap, but they didn’t want me to have a visible gap
So in the course of packing up our place one of our cat disappeared and is most probably deceased, she is/was, six years old. If she turns up she will be shipped down to us.
Sorry, seemed like a somewhat relevant place to vent.
Zolnier, I’m so sorry! I do hope she’s all right and you’re reunited.
Hugs if they’re wanted.
What state have you moved to, if you don’t mind me asking?
We’re moving to Western Australia from the Northern Territory, and thank you. On the bright side we might be adopting the black and white kitten of one of of my mum’s old work cats. Most supported name in the household right now is Abbadon seeing as there’s such a wide variety of nicknames, Abba, Abbey, Abe, Don, the list goes on… to Donny.
Also, the border collie and the other cat are doing fine, though we have to keep the latter in boarding for the time being.
We’re still on dentistry huh? I had a painful cavity in my wisdom tooth and ignored it because I didn’t have dental insurance and the pain would go away after a few day. It finally got unbearable one day so I called in sick and made an emergency appointment and it turned out to be an abscess. Luckily it wasn’t too expensive to fix. I only had to have it pulled and since it was a wisdom tooth, no crown necessary. It was pretty scary Googling tooth abscess though. People have died of sepsis from those before.
One of many reasons dental should be covered under health insurance.
That’s a long way to move!
I hope you do adopt the kitten – AND that your other cat turns up safe.
My dad’s afraid of dentists and healthcare professionals in general and especially needles and used “It’s a racket” as an excuse not to have his teeth cleaned and examined, even claiming “I haven’t gone to the dentist is X years and I’m just fine!” The fact of the matter is he’d been very lucky and had excellent oral health most of his life. Over the last four-ish years his bad habits caught up with him to the point he had such pain from abscessed teeth that he was pulling over the car, completely disoriented by the pain of the migraines they were causing.
He found some swank dentist with incredible hands who he’s comfortable spending a lot of money to see and be stabbed by with needles. He’s needed at least four root canals though and, honestly, the dentist’s primary concern, while fixing his teeth was pretty high up there, was his heart. Seeing a man in their fifties with a mouth full of abscessed teeth is FRIGHTENING for their overall heath.
Abscess!!!
I went to the dentist one day in 1974, who promptly told me he couldn’t do anything about my aching tooth because it was abscessed and he was afraid of septicemia if he extracted it then and there. Dutifully went to the doctor who pointed out that what I thought was referred pain in my ear was, in fact, an ear abscess. Two of the bastards.
So I had the whole week off work. Had to go to the doctor’s surgery bright and early each morning for penicillin injections. Went to the dentist after a few days and he extracted the tooth. The following day the doctor had a look in my ear.
Aha, said he. Almost gone, there’s just a tiny bit left on your eardrum. If you hold your head still I’ll just scrape it off. … And got into high dudgeon when I squealed a bit. “Watch it. I might pierce your eardrum if you’re not careful.”
Thanks a lot, doc.
An infected tooth cost me four months of school and basically left me bedridden at a few points, never underestimate the need for a good dentist.