hans.gerwitz

In 36 years, I’ve never been subject to medical modi­fi­cation. I’ve suffered cuts and bruises, of course, but have never had a doctor use tools on me with even local anes­thesia. No cavities, oper­a­tions, or even ortho­dontics. All the usual suspect parts are still with me: appendix, tonsils, wisdom teeth.

I’ve known this cannot last. Nonetheless, over years of carefree somatic integrity, I only grew less prepared for the inevitable. The need to entrust another human with a knife, drill, or laser pointed beyond the skin has remained a curiosity of other people’s stories.

A week ago, though, I discovered a sharp edge in my mouth. It didn’t take long to discern a gaping void where one of my molars has spent decades solidly preventing my tongue or wayward food from exploring. There was no pain, but this clearly could not be ignored and my years of dental negli­gence were at their end. Especially after Shannon fright­fully exclaimed that a quarter of my tooth was missing upon inspection.

The timing was perfect; we still had months to go before leaving Munich.

Around the corner from work, a dentist keeps an office above a side-​​street café. If you didn’t know where to look, you’d be unlikely to find it; the building otherwise appears to be apart­ments. The office felt more like an apartment itself, with a foyer that happens to have a large stone desk.

My new dentist was an older gentleman with darkened, leathery skin and hands that shake as if Parkinson’s is setting in. When he grasped a pen, at least, they become as rock steady as his eval­u­ative gaze. He explained that my insurance card was useless to him, but we would worry about money later after he inspected the “defect”. One of his assis­tants, a tall, young, picturesque blonde, lead me to the exam room, which was domi­nated by a large terrarium enclosure. Finding me inspecting that, he casually explained that there are no snakes at the moment, for they did not survive the winter. I proceeded to sit down, and he waved off my apologies for a tea-​​soiled mouth and went right to work poking at teeth.

So, I expe­ri­enced my first anes­thetic under the blinding glare of an oper­ation lamp with a gruff old doctor taking a needle to my mouth while shouting German to his other assistant (the shorter young, picturesque blonde). This is pretty much how I always expected being a patient would be.

The ordeal wasn’t that harrowing, really, and I left with an epoxy-​​rebuilt tooth that’s indis­tin­guishable from the original, with records and clear direc­tions for a long-​​term dentist in Seattle.

I’ve now crossed a line. Rather than “repaired”, I feel I have been augmented via the intro­duction of synthetic material. My new bit of molar is superior in many ways to the original, so I wonder why I don’t have more replaced. Perhaps I can have a sensor-​​laden molar installed that can report on the timing and compo­sition of my food intake.

The state of medical augmen­tation tech­nology is quite impressive, with arti­ficial bones and organs common­place. With an increasing appre­ci­ation for self-​​measurement, how long must we wait before sensors are developed for voluntary implan­tation? Will sports regu­lators allow a simple blood sugar sensor, which could be a valuable training tool but also a safety device? How will they confirm that you don’t have a VOMax-​​boosting oxygenator woven into a lung?

Now that I’ve accepted a man-​​made improvement to my physical self, I’m eager for more.