rinue | and the baby with the baboon heart

The main characteristic of aggressive periodontis as I experience it is the number of apologies I get from dental professionals for what is widely viewed as very bad luck; otherwise my gums seem mostly the same to me as other people's. This is of course the result of massive and sustained intervention in an age of miracles. I consider myself to have very good luck. Anyway I will probably need further bone grafts and growth hormone, but not for another six months at least. It is a good thing I find dentists heroic and relaxing.

Local anesthetics have come a long way in 20 years; when I was in braces, they didn't numb anything except my tongue, whereas now the periodontist piped a line of clear stuff around my gums and then I felt absolutely nothing as they dug around under there for an hour, and it didn't make my tongue or my lips go to sleep or even tingle. Extraordinary. I pretty much napped through the procedure. Hours later I still feel no discomfort even after eating. I suppose it could also be true that through a great deal of practice I've learned how not to experience the sensations of dental pain, but I don't know if that is even possible. The brain is wondrous labile, but phantom pain in amputees suggests it isn't that labile.

Also, L'Oreal has developed accurate fake skin so it can test its cosmetics. I'm chagrinned I didn't think of that ahead of time; of course the high-gear production of fake skin isn't going to be kicked off by burn researchers, but by a makeup company. I'm a bad science fiction author.