It was just a week ago when I was bragging about our wonderful spring weather in January. Loving my daisy blooms then the gray clouds came, never left for five whole days & voila, our little barrio on a carpet of immaculate white snow. It started with sleet then finally it turned into snow pouring entirely the whole day yesterday & all through the night. It were the biggest, most wonderful snowflakes I have ever seen. This magnificent downpour of snow cost us our power supply the whole night enough for our thick walls to withstand the freezing temperatures.
This landscape is not an ordinary sight here in the south of France that the panic & chaos on the road is obliged. But even in the midst of non-stop snow, I still went to my appointment with the dentist. I have been trying to see her since we moved here & it would be a good opportunity to have her check my teeth before I get my dental crown in Manila. I didn't really intend to tell her about this plan but it seemed to me she was ready for the x-rays & for a temporary crown. I already know the exorbitant cost of dental care in France & it is normal protocol for them to present you your choices & especially the cost, which didn't look like her protocol at all. With that, I blurted my plan & the dentist's face changed dramatically.
It's obvious that I shouldn't have but a dental crown here costs 610€ each, and I don't urgently need just one but three. In total, my bill would be 2,640€, with only 480€ reimbursement from the Social Security (which totals to 2,100€). I continued telling her that the prices are really steep & that a lot of French are resorting to seeing university students or even traveling to Spain or Italy for their dental work. To which she disagreed saying that if these teeth needed care, she wouldn't even accept the patient. She then added that this price is not even expensive if you think about it.
At first I felt so ashamed for not having tact & ethics but after replaying it in my head, maybe I really wanted her to know how outrageous this price is for a crown (300€ for a crown is still painful but at least more affordable). I even asked her if I could still come back to see her for the rest of my dental work even if I decide not to do the crowns with her. Although the air was so damp with awkwardness, she still managed to say yes & making sure to let me know that she is not happy. I guess I need a new dentist (again) & in the end, I thought her approach of not even proposing her dental fees before anything else & not accepting patients with teeth she didn't do, seems like business to me. I'll take my chances on paying double if necessary. How could fake teeth cost so much?
Like I said, we're going to pay for our wonderful winter weather but I don't mind twice or thrice a year of snow, especially when you wake up with a view like that. Snow is still magic.
