Root Canal Day!

After getting some dental treatment and meds in Barcelona, Paul’s tooth ache has mostly been under control, but we both started catching a cold this past week and it seems when his immune system is lowered, the pain starts to come back.  So, before things got out of hand like last time, Paul decided to schedule his root canal while we’re in Nice and got in to see the dentist today at 11am.

He asked me to go with him in case I could better translate something (which I couldn’t really because I don’t know any medical words in French) and I spent the majority of the hour looking away as I couldn’t stand watching the dentist inject freezing and drilling into his tooth (I’ve come to the conclusion that I could never be a dentist!) The procedure was a success and it seems like the dentist was really careful and did a good job.  Now Paul just needs to get a real filling and crown when he goes back to Canada and he’ll be done with this root canal crap!

When he finished the procedure, the dentist himself went to the desk to collect our money and produce a receipt (I guess they don’t have receptionists here).  Because he was from a different office, he wasn’t too familiar with the software and it took 20 minutes to get the bill sorted out because the total kept coming out lower than what he told us we had to pay.  I think he was deliberately overcharging us because I watched him enter in the procedure and the number of xrays he took, and the software kept coming up with a total of 98 euros but he told us it was 150 euros.  We couldn’t really argue or question it because of the language barrier and in the end he couldn’t print a detailed receipt so he had to write a description of the procedure so we can try to claim on our medical insurance.  His technical difficulties worsened when the visa machine wouldn’t print a receipt for him and no one else could figure out how to do a reprint – I think it’s time to get a receptionist!  I just hope that our medical insurance will cover this – all we’ve got is a receipt from the printer showing the 150 euros we paid and a handwritten description of the procedure that isn’t even on letterhead because they don’t have letterhead! (editor’s note: the pictures you took should help, but I hope you guys grabbed a business card too!)