Teeth aren't bones

Last night, in the hour-long lull between Dr. D’s furious Step 1 Boards cramming and the blissful head-meets-pillow moment, my husband and I were cozied up on our living room couch, sharing our days’ events.

As we discussed the general overarching themes of the day (Dr. D’s being “cancer sucks” and mine being “having a 36-inch inseam also sucks, but not as much as cancer”), my diatribe about designers being too cheap to use additional fabric to make extra-long jeggings was interrupted by the obnoxious, fingers-on-chalkboard sound of our dog’s teeth on his bone.

“…and I have no idea why I seem to be the only one with this problem, because obviously models must have long—how in the holy HECK does he still have teeth left in his mouth?!”

I picked up one end of the bone (dog still firmly attached to the other end, mind you) and Dr. D and I watched, transfixed and uneasy, as J-dog euphorically continued to gnaw his teeth rhythmically over the bone with a grinding errrrrrrrk! errrrrrrrk! sound.

One of the many reasons I love Dr. D is that I can usually rely on him for an answer to any of my questions having to do with science… sometimes they’re real answers, sometimes made up—I’m okay either way because I figure I’ll either learn or be entertained. So, I asked him, “How come he’s not chipping any teeth? Are dog’s bones really that much stronger than this cow/pig/horse/whatever’s bone?”

Dr. D has this kind of half-smile, squinty look he gives me when I say something ridiculous and he’s trying to figure out whether or not I really meant it. He quickly saw that I did: “You do realize teeth aren’t bones, right?”

…Wrong.

World. Rocked.

How have I gone nearly 25 years under the misguided assumption that teeth are just itty bitty bones that are lodged in our noggins? Shouldn’t I have learned this in a Magic School Bus episode or something? Honestly, the only time I ever really remember learning about teeth in school was in my (Texas) 2^nd grade class when representatives from Crest toothpaste came in to talk to us about the importance of using Kid’s Crest to keep away cavities. I must have been too engrossed in the free samples and the awesomeness that was Crest Sparkleman to hear the part of their lecture about teeth not being gosh darn bones.

At first I was freaked out that I might be the only person on earth who wasn’t aware of the whole teeth-aren’t-bones thing, but a quick google search was enough to set my mind at ease—I didn’t even have to completely type in “are teeth bones” because it auto-filled for me. Phew.

Anyway, if you’ve got some time and you really want to bone-up (hah!) on what makes a tooth a tooth and not a bone, you might want to conduct a search of your own… or you could just look at this diagram I found and note that nowhere on it does it say “bone.” Go figure.

In related news, did you know that it’s possible to get a tooth tattoo? More importantly, did you know you can get a tattooth (term coined by Dr. D) of Simon Cowell?

You know you want to.

Medical Matrimony 101: Lesson 1

In the scheme of things, my marriage to Dr. D is in its infancy. However, I’d like to think that over the past two years (which, by the way, has anyone read or heard anything recently about time moving roughly 2.54 times faster than usual? Because, hot dang!), I’ve learned quite a bit about being married to a medical student.

I thought it might be fun to share this wisdom with you all, because even if you aren’t a med student/professional, or married to one, you might at least know one… or maybe you will someday? At the very least, if you find yourself in a bar near a hospital and it’s after 10pm, the knowledge I impart to you now may come in handy.

So, first lesson:

Watch Grey’s Anatomy.

Stop rolling your eyes. No really, stop—they might get stuck that way. Okay, not really. Dr. D tells me that’s a lie… unless you're taking anti-psychotics. See how helpful it is to know a med student?

But seriously, folks, for those of you who find yourselves in the midst of a gaggle (it’s a word, look it up) of med students, it may be advantageous to have a six-season arsenal of Grey’s Anatomy plot line knowledge at your disposal, as I do. Why?

• You can (sort of) speak their language. At the very least, you’ll know to make a frowny face when you hear them say that a patient had a “cardiomyopathy,” and you won’t embarrass yourself by casually commenting “Oh yeah? That’s cool” when they tell you they witnessed a patient go asystolic. (<--Not ringing any bells? How about “beeeeeeeeeeeeeep…”? Yeah, now you’ve got it.)

• You’ll understand what they mean when they tell you exactly where they are in their journey from lowly med student to big-shot doctor, because whatever term they use (intern, resident, chief resident, attending, chief of surgery, etc.), you’ll be able to equate it to a character: “Oh, you’re an intern about to take your medical board exam? Man, hope you don’t pull a Karev a bomb that sucker!” Season 2, baby.

Okay, fine. Maybe you just don’t have a stomach for all the romantic storylines and double entendres, or perhaps you can’t suspend disbelief long enough to go along with the fact that all of the doctors’ sleeping around with each other hasn’t given them all some sort of disease—fast forward through those parts and KEEP WATCHING because…

• You can gain some serious “med cred” (how stoked am I that I just came up with that?!) by knowing about some of the more ridiculous conditions that are featured on the show, especially if the med student/doctor you’re talking to doesn’t know that it was a plotline on Grey’s. Because believe it or not, most of the medical cases on the show are based—sometimes more loosely than others—on real medicine. For example, those of you who watch the show might remember the dude who kept eating cotton balls and other medical supplies when the doctors' backs were turned… I dare you to bring up Pica Disorder in casual conversation with a med student. Minds will be blown.

Class dismissed.

Medical Matrimony, et al.

I have this crazy idea. Or maybe it's less of an idea and more of a theory, since "idea" implies a sense of originality---and let's face it, blogging hasn't been original since, what, 1997? I was 12 at that time, and let me be honest: in sixth grade I was too busy collecting key chains, sketching Disney characters and ignoring the fact that poor Dr. D (my husband) was in excruciating puppy love with me, to ever have the expendable brain waves to create the idea for online diary-writing. Let alone to think of calling it a "blahg." I mean really.
So my theory is this: I am going to want to remember this. What is "this," you may wonder? (I do realize that posing this hypothetical question assumes a readership greater than zero, which may be somewhat arrogant and misguided on my part, but I digress...)
When I say I want to remember this, I mean these early years of our marriage, and how we (Dr. D and I) got to this point in our lives, as individuals and as partners. I want to remember the big things and the little things, because sometimes the little things have an even bigger influence on the road ahead than all of the big things combined. For instance, one day when Dr. D was in grade school he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. That was a little thing, a moment in time. But because of his answer to that question, we're where we are now and Dr. D is halfway done with his medical degree. We've had the chance to build a home together and learn to rely on each other and trust in our love. We're also farther away from our family and friends than we ever expected to be, so it's my hope that this can be a way to share our lives with them despite the distance.
Woah... that got heavy for a second, didn't it? Let me lighten the mood a bit with the thing that I'd like to remember today:
Dr. D and I frequently have deep, existential conversations. On one such occasion, we posed to each other the question: if your spouse was a vegetable, what vegetable would they be? My loving husband eagerly blurted out his answer first: "You would be a GREEN BEAN!" I must not have been able to mask my disappointment and rising body-image sensitivity fast enough (I mean c'mon! Long, skinny, limp green beans?!), because he hastily added: "I mean... you're a well-proportioned green bean! With all the curves in the right beany places!"
He's a keeper.