Cock-a-doodle-root canal! The week started off with a trip to the endodontist in Samana for my root canal. I was very nervous when I arrived but the doctor showed me the steps she would be taking and it looked like the root canals I have had in the States, minus the paperwork, so that relaxed me a bit. She started out with the Novocaine shot so that was a good start. While she prepared her tools, I laid back and that was when the rooster started crowing. There was a rooster that evidently was standing directly outside the window and he crowed every minute, on the minute. As she began to drill, I used the rooster as my mantra…cockadoodledoo, drill, drill, drill, cockadoodledoo, drill, drill, drill. I began to ponder the word problems we used to have in fifth grade math… “If Sally goes to the dentist at 9:00am and the rooster crows once every sixty seconds, how many crows will the rooster have if the root canal takes exactly 2 hours and 19 minutes?” I’ll leave you to the math! After a while, the doctor began to sing. I can honestly say that I have never had a singing dentist before but it was quite a nice touch! Luckily for her, my Spanish is so bad she could have been singing the same song over and over again and she did not have to worry about forgetting the lyrics. At about the two hour mark, she started to drill and I about came out of the seat! She stopped and stated, “Anesthesia time out”. If I could have spoken Spanish well enough, I would have responded with a very sarcastic “No sh*# Sherlock!” but since that was not an option, I simply nodded my head and made the hand gesture of giving myself another shot. She shook her head and said, “No necessito. Almost done”. I shook my head with a “yes, necessito” and another shot gesture. “No necessito. Almost done”, she responded. “Yes, necessito” and another shot gesture. At this point, she figured out that the gringo was not going to lay back in the chair again without anesthesia. So, after another shot of Novocaine, I laid back down and she continued. Her idea of almost done and mine were two totally different things as she continued to work for another 15 minutes….that would have been a really long time for “anesthesia time out” in my book! Once the work was done, she snapped a quick x-ray to show me that the root canal was complete. When we walked out to pay the receptionist, instead of a receipt, she handed me an envelope with my x-ray in it. I think that is probably the most secure receipt I have ever gotten from a medical office! All in all, the entire procedure cost $220.00 US dollars. For those of you who have never had a root canal put toward your deductible, my last one cost at least $3500.00. I’ll take the singing dentist and my rooster mantra!
The middle of the week became the weather watch adventure. Before we leave port, we start to chart out the weather from several different sources to try to pick the best “weather window” for travel. We were ready to move onto the Punta Cana area as our last stop in the DR before tackling our next country, Puerto Rico. The next best weather window was going to be Thursday through Sunday so we killed time the next couple of days by doing laundry and lounging in the pool. While at the pool, I observed another “life-ism” that appears to be universal. The infamous “you have 10 more minutes” statement made by mothers seems to not be just an American thing! How do mothers learn these things? Who was the first mother to say, “you have 10 more minutes” and who was the first kid that figured out when those words were spoken, every activity that could possibly be completed in life must be condensed into those 10 minutes? We watched as the kid proceeded to jump like a whale, run the distance of the pool, swim in circles, count under water and play a complete concert on the water drums while singing at the top of his lungs. Of course, he finished with the also universal, “just one more minute” whine while his mother stomped on the pavement. So nice to know that my kids were not the only ones! When our boat part finally arrived on Thursday (only a day late!), we began preparing to leave to Cap Cana. As you all know by now, that involved a trip to the navy office for our golden despacho and this time, I also had to fill out another pink form at the customs office for no apparent reason. We set sail at 6:00am on Friday for a long 10 hour trip to Punta Macau where we would anchor for the night. The weather window was glorious and the seas were like glass so it was a wonderful day on the water. We had just dropped anchor in Macau when we look up to see, who else….the navy coming out to the boat. I grabbed the golden despacho as the navy commandant climbed onto the back swim platform. He perused our despacho, asked the usual questions and then announced that we were good to spend the night. It wasn’t until he climbed back into their boat that I noticed that he was barefoot with his uniform pants rolled up like Huckleberry Finn. I am really going to miss the navy characters of the DR when we leave! The night at Macau was quite peaceful after the locals on the beach stopped blaring the music and went home. We had a few rolly hours while trying to sleep but nothing too horrible. At 5:00am, we set out for our final 5 hour leg to Cap Cana. The waves were a little choppier than we like, but we passed the time hunting for humpback whales that come to this area from January to March each year. After four hours, we finally accepted that we were not going to see a whale. Just as we prepared to round the last cape, I saw a geyser in front of us. It took me a few seconds to register that it was a whale spouting and I yelled, “We got whales” which sent us both into an excited whale dance. The next few minutes, we were enthralled with watching the whale jump from the water and splash down as if he knew we had been waiting on him for two days. It was an amazing spectacle and we are hoping to have more visits when we cross over to Puerto Rico. We arrived in Cap Cana (which is a marina just down the road from Punta Cana) and I announced that I may never leave! This place is beautiful and everything you imagine when you think of Punta Cana. Beaches, pools, golf carts and overpriced restaurants. We look forward to our week here while we begin mapping out our next weather window to hopefully cross over to Puerto Rico. May you have a wonderful week full of funny life-isms and unexpected whale visits!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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