New York

I'm fortunate that I've had few dental problems - before now. I lost my dental insurance and so I kept putting off going back to the dentist. I had a tooth extracted from the other side and still have a space there, but it's been long enough that I'm used to it. Fortunately, they're both in the back.

And I can sure sympathize. The abscessed tooth I had last year was as painful as anything I've experienced. And I was reluctant to go back to the dentist, but it happened more than once, so I finally forced myself to get it taken care of. It's a trip to see my dentist, but she knows or knew my whole family and I trust her which is important.

She's also "one of us." I seem to have dental appointments on the worst days ever. I was there for X-Rays on 9/11. It seemed like I was sitting there forever, watching the TV she had tuned to CNN - and seeing that second plane hitting the WTC over and over. I was scared witless when I finally stumbled out of there. I'd always voted, but that's when I decided I'd better learn more about what was really going on in this country - and the rest of the world. And in that journey, I eventually found DU.

I mentioned my experience once here and another poster asked me if I'd ever told my dentist. So I took her advice and shared that with her and learned she feels pretty much the same way we do here. When I was going there during the campaign, we had the TV tuned to MSNBC and when I could talk, LOL, I kept up a discussion with my dentist and her like-minded 22-year-old assistant.