So,the day had come, I realized, as I sat in the examination room of the Campbell River dental clinic. I’d outlived my teeth. The dentist carefully explained they were worn beyond making simple repairs. I needed crowns. I needed root canals. I needed an extraction. And to get these I needed a bigger income( or a sugar daddy). And the second option is only there for comic relief.

So I asked him how much would it be to get them all fixed. Dr. Rivers sighed, and then sheepishly said “actually what you could really use is a smile makeover but that’s tens of thousands. But for now we can plug away at the essentials. Four crowns and root canals, one extraction. “So how much is gonna be?”I asked although I didn’t know why. It was going to be more than I had anyway. “

Oh, we’re going into pretty close to 12000 for the crowns and root canal we can do right now. To do the rest of your teeth isn isn’t going to be cheap.” Now my curiosity was piqued. “So whats “not cheap”? Doctor Rivers frowned. And he started to scuttle out of the examination room. Staying over his shoulder oh we’re talking more than $50,000”.

Well, that was kind of out of the question for me. But I had to find some way of fixing my teeth. And after talking to three other dentists in Campbell River, it was an apparent that I could not get this work done in Canada. The Canada Dental plan wouldn’t cover the root canals or crowns, but would cover extracting the five teeth that were urgent. But since I bought my own dental insurance, I wouldn’t qualify anyway.

I started looking around for dentist in Mexico after hearing great reviews about dentists there. I got a quote from one has fantastic reviews and decided to get my teeth fixed there. For 20 crowns and three root canals they would charge me $350 for each of the crowns, plus $300 for each root canal and $100 for the extraction. In US dollars it would be about $10,000. That I could swallow.

The dentist was in a little town called Los Algodones, across the border from Yuma in the middle of the desert. The only reason for the town’s existence seemed to be for dental tourism. More than 250 dental clinics have set up shop in Los Algodones. They cater mainly to dental tourists from the US and Canada. It’s earned the town the nickname “Molar City”.

Friends offered to care for Annabelle and Jolene so I could make the trip. and it was set.