AME: They're All Around Us

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[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a production of the Very Dental Podcast Network.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Alan Mead is a dentist with too much time on his hands and too much recording equipment

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_01]: in his basement.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Armed with an obsession to bring entertaining and informative content to the dental world

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_01]: in a way thats never been done before.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I give you the Alan Mead Experience.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Well hello and welcome to another episode of the Alan Mead Experience.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Im your host Dr. Alan Mead.

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I am a dentist, a podcaster and a geometry tutor.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_01]: So my kids just started school last week and apparently the class that I will be

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_01]: helping out the most with this year will be geometry.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So my 11th grader Sean is taking geometry.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_01]: He's kind of excited about it because he thinks geometry will be a better classroom

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_01]: than algebra.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_01]: He's already needing quite a bit of help so I am brushing up on my geometry.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_01]: If any listeners have any suggestions on geometry, I'm all ears.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Its been a while.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Actually we had what they call curriculum night earlier this week where we went to

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_01]: high school and each parent kind of goes through the kids schedule for five minutes

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_01]: at a time to meet the teacher and see where the classes are and all that stuff.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And it turns out Sean's geometry class is literally the same classroom that I took

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01]: geometry in in 1986.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So just to give you an idea of a little of that spread.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So anyhow, its kind of cool.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So I have a bit of a downer of a topic for this episode.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Its been a week actually.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Right now I'm at my lunch hour on Thursday of the week before this goes out.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So I start my clinical day, I start my clinical week on Tuesday.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And its just been a week for sure but there's some very specific stuff that I want

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_01]: to talk about.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_01]: First off, I've admitted to you guys before that I'm a bit of a social media junkie.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm probably better now than I have been in the past but I think anyone who spends

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_01]: any time at all online, whether its Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, anything like

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_01]: that, I think our social media soaked world would lead you to believe that most

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01]: people are killing it out there.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Like the whole concept of an influencer culture would leave people to believe

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_01]: that all these people are doing really well and they're doing better than

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_01]: you and they're making it look easy and all this stuff.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course when you just see their highlight reel, its easy to feel that

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01]: way.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean these stuff is highly edited and they're only showing you what they want

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_01]: you to see and all this stuff.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So part of it is like, oh man everyone else is killing it.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So when you compare that with your normal humdrum everyday existence with

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_01]: the problems that happen to everyone in real life compared to this joyous

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_01]: life that they're showing, sometimes you start to think of yourself a

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_01]: little bit less than.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I know that's real because it happens to me.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I think kind of a mental health check can get you and just kind

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: of checking in with yourself can help you realize that's not really real.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_01]: The world isn't real to be honest.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_01]: This week has me believing now that we live in a simulation because every

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_01]: time I think things can't get weirder, they do.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So, so anyhow, I'm sort of framing this from the fact that so much of

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_01]: what you see around you would have you believing that the world is just

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_01]: killing it.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not really, but I understand if someone feels that way.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And then a subsection of these posts you see on social media, you see a lot

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: of influencers doing the classic.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting vulnerable here posts where people talk about mental health,

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: mental illness stuff, mental health and how almost always the influencers

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: will talk about the fact that they have had depression or addiction or,

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_01]: or these mental health issues.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But they always talk about it in the, in the past tense, you know,

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_01]: they're always, they're thriving now and that they can talk about the

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_01]: history that they had in how they've overcome it.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_01]: They never, it's rarely, rarely are you seeing the dude, you know, who has

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_01]: an opiate addiction Jonesing on Instagram?

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's a, you're not seeing that sort of stuff.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_01]: You're seeing, you know, I'm, I'm as guilty as the next guy.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I have, I, I've been in recovery for 22 years and, and so most of you,

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_01]: if maybe any of you, none of you have ever seen me in active addiction.

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So I, it's one of the things where, yeah, I mean, that's what I've got to talk

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_01]: about. I've got to talk about my history.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And so when I talk about it, it makes it sound easy because you know,

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_01]: 22 years later, it's not that hard, but it sort of sucked.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_01]: What I,

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_01]: the posts are almost always kind of triumphant about how they've

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_01]: conquered their and overcome their mental illness challenges or their

[00:06:00] [SPEAKER_01]: mental health challenges.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just kind of prefacing that here.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to come back to some mental health stuff.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a little bit scary and a little close,

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01]: a little too close to comfort for me or a little too close for comfort for

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_01]: me.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_01]: This week was a really humbling one for me. So on Tuesday I had,

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I had a patient that came in with an abscess tooth and we got him in and

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_01]: it was an emergency. I didn't know if I was going to,

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: but if I was going to open the tooth up, I was, it was a, it's a,

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_01]: he was obsessed and I think we,

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to open the tooth at least start an endo to give him some,

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_01]: some relief. And I,

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I have a wireless dense by Serona a hand piece. I like it.

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty cool.

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And it connects to a little iPad mini and the iPad mini sort of runs the

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_01]: hand piece and it's this, you know,

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_01]: it's a battery charge thing and it's a pretty cool hand piece.

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I gotta say it's a,

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: it really seems to work well or did seem to work well.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So I got it out and was ready to roll and it's as if the battery has,

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_01]: has had its last charge. I guess,

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess these rechargeable batteries maybe only can charge so many times.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_01]: But I, so I have a very expensive,

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_01]: very cool wireless endo hand piece that doesn't work. It doesn't,

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_01]: it doesn't start and it doesn't connect to iPads. It doesn't do anything.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So I,

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: my expensive endo hand piece bit the dust and there's if any of you guys

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: know how to fix one, I'd love to hear about it. But anyhow,

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_01]: so I ended up having to buy another endo hand piece. So that's,

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_01]: that's on its way. So that was a kick in the teeth.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I come in Wednesday morning and then my,

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_01]: my office manager main main right hand woman is sort of

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01]: standing in front of the,

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: the on the sterilization room and sort of sort of signaling she doesn't

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_01]: want me to see it. The sterilizer also bit the dust on Wednesday.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So we had enough sterile instruments to make through, you know,

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_01]: a good portion of the day on Wednesday, but the reality is,

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_01]: so we, she had a call in to our, our,

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_01]: our technician and was hoping for the best that he'd be able to fix it.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_01]: But so I started,

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_01]: started Tuesday with a dead expensive and endo hand piece and started to

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Wednesday with, with a broken sterilizer.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So I wasn't able to sterilize instruments.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Both of these things have sort of worked themselves out. We had the,

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_01]: the shine guy came and was able to fix it.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So we're up and running with the sterilizer.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting a new endo hand piece. But on top of that, Tuesday morning,

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_01]: we had these big crazy storms,

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: lightning and thunder and all kinds of stuff.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And are we had no power at the house on Tuesday and actually all the way

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_01]: through through Wednesday evening. And which meant, you know,

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01]: so to get the kids to school and stuff,

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_01]: but my, my wife and the boys stayed in town with her mom and the air

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: conditioning cause it was really hot and humid. And I ran the generator,

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_01]: we have a gas generator at home, but it, you know what? We were only,

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: we were running it so that we could keep the refrigerators and freezers running

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and stuff.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: It just does basic stuff enough that I could feed the horses and stuff.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And there was actually a freaking power line over the road and they hadn't

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_01]: even, they wouldn't even move the power line.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Power line was over the road for two days.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I ended up driving over it a whole bunch of times thinking, well,

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_01]: okay. And someone said they thought it was a, wasn't alive wire.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I guess we'll find out. Cause I mean, I, we had a,

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_01]: we had horses and a dog on the other side of that wire that I had to

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_01]: feed. It was a nightmare. The whole thing was so stupid. So I mean,

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_01]: all of these things were pretty stressful, but, but I'm not going to lie to you.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_01]: The thing that really threw me off was this whole mental health scene,

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_01]: this whole mental health issue. So, uh, this is an interesting story.

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_01]: This is, this is, this is really out there. I gotta tell you.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So I came in on Tuesday morning.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_01]: This was even before the endo engine had died and we got the mail from

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_01]: the weekend and my assistant handed me an envelope.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a handwritten envelope. It had mead family dental written on it with my address.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And then it said attention, Dr. Mead only personal and confidential.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was written in kind of a very,

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_01]: very specific kind of handwriting. It definitely looked like a dude.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, it wasn't, it wasn't horrible. It was very readable, but it was not,

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, you could tell it was someone who's not, you know,

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_01]: it was not the neatest handwriting.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And it actually had a name and a return address that was not too far from

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_01]: the office on it.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_01]: So I opened it and there was a handwritten note in it,

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'm going to read you the note word for word. Now here's the thing.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It's very graphic. The guy, the guy, uh,

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to just read it to you cause I, cause I,

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I need to get the point across to you how disturbing this was.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It's very graphic. There's a lot of curse words in this. So just hold tight.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Hold on your hands. It says two DDS Mead colon.

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_01]: You are a white piece of shit.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And it actually peace was spelled P E I C E a lot of kind of random

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_01]: capitals in this whole thing too. So it's,

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_01]: it was not someone who's probably super academic.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_01]: You are a white piece of shit and the son of a bitch go fuck yourself

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_01]: asshole. My lawyer says, I've got a case against you.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_01]: See you in malpractice court. I got big balls.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And then it wasn't signed. So basically this was a pretty

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_01]: threatening, I guess it wasn't physically threatening,

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_01]: but it was a little scary. Like, you know, I mean, this person, first off,

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what the whole white thing has to do with anything. I don't,

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know who wrote this.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm assuming maybe they want me to think that they are not white and

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_01]: there's some kind of a race issue here, which is weird. Uh,

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_01]: someone very angry, someone, someone, um,

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_01]: someone who thinks that I have done them wrong and clearly there's a malpractice

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_01]: case to be had. So imagine just getting this,

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: there is a name on it in the name was not a patient of record.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_01]: We had no one with that name and we had no one from the address that he

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_01]: gave us. So I'm assuming that this person was using a fake name.

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. I'm no idea. Um,

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_01]: honestly,

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I got that and was kind of shaken to my core,

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_01]: uh, because a,

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know who it is and B it's obviously a very angry,

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_01]: upset letter that seems vaguely threatening. And I'm just like,

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't, you know, I don't get this a lot.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't get a ton of hate mail like this in,

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_01]: and it was addressed to me. So it was kind of freaky. So what do,

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_01]: what does someone like me who has probably a below average self-esteem,

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I immediately start trying to think of patients that might be disgruntled

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_01]: that I can think of. And I got to tell you,

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I've been on a streak of not too many disgruntled patients. Okay.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I, I, I, most of them, I,

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_01]: when I've had bad stuff that happened,

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I somehow was able to smooth it over reason.

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I just haven't had many that I thought of. And then honestly,

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought of one, I thought of one that it could have been,

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_01]: but even this person didn't seem that bummed out.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I ended up, it was a, it was a,

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I started a root canal on a tooth that in retrospect,

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_01]: it was a case management thing. It was one of those things where I couldn't,

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_01]: the canals were not screaming on the, on the radiograph.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_01]: It was really calcified.

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I ended up not finding all the canals on this tooth and I ended up

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_01]: punting it over to an endodontist because I'm like, okay,

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_01]: they're calcified. The other thing is I got to say on the mesial, I got,

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I got a number 10 file about two thirds of the way down the route.

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't get any further than that, but I, um,

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01]: so I filled it with calcium hydroxide because I wanted, I did get it.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I got a nice big distal canal and was able to fill out the calcium

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01]: hydroxide. I got calcium hydroxide in this teeny tiny canal.

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't find anything on the mesial wing wall. So,

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: and actually I had calcium hydroxide kind of scored out of the tooth mid

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_01]: root in on the mesial. Like, Oh my God, did I perforate this tooth?

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_01]: But I never got anything past that number 10 file into this thing.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_01]: So I can't, I can't imagine I perforated it with a number 10 file, but it was,

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_01]: it was sort of a mystery. And I'm like, okay, so I'm,

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in over my head here and my endodontist was perfectly okay with this.

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a, I'm wondering, like, is it this guy? It could it be this guy?

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's a part of me that this guy actually called back

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_01]: after this was back in May, mind you, when this happened and he called,

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_01]: he canceled all his appointments with us. So I thought, okay,

[00:14:22] [SPEAKER_01]: he's pretty hot that this root canal didn't go well,

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_01]: but he also had a really weird interaction at the endodontist office.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It was basically there may have been some drug seeking stuff going on in the

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_01]: endodontist office and honestly,

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_01]: he was never actually seen clinically by the endodontist. So I don't know,

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what's going on there. I don't know. I still,

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I still have a, I still wonder if it's this guy.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And honestly I looked at this guy's chart and saw some of his handwriting

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_01]: and like, man, that could be the same thing as listening.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I did all this fricking detective work because I'm thinking to myself,

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_01]: the one really bad outcome I can think of in the last six to eight months.

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And now I think this random guy who wrote this horrible letter to me,

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_01]: that didn't put his name on it really didn't not anyone that I knew,

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_01]: but I have to go into my self esteem well and go start digging through

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_01]: the bad things that happen. And for sure, of course, in my mind,

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_01]: of course the handwriting looks the same. It's gotta be the same guy.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So imagine getting that letter first thing on Tuesday and then having your

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_01]: hand be break before you could even use it on a patient and then finding out

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_01]: that you have power. And it's just, it's been a week.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a week. Today's been much better to be honest.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, Tuesday I was under a blackout cloud all day.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_01]: This thing was really under my skin and I talked with some friends about it

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_01]: and I sent it to sent it around and got some opinions.

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And honestly multiple friends had been, you know, you gotta,

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_01]: you gotta make a police report. That's,

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_01]: that's threatening enough where you,

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_01]: there needs to be at least a report in case something happens.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And so Tuesday at lunch I go to the Saginaw Township police and I make a

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_01]: police report. And what's really interesting is of course,

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I've never made a police report. I don't know. I don't know how this works.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I go in a very nice lady behind a sliding glass door, the classic slide.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_01]: This was probably bulletproof glass on us. This was probably really good glass,

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_01]: but she slid down.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_01]: She handed me a clipboard and said, I need you to fill out,

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_01]: fill out what happened and we'll give you a case number.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And if anything else happens, we'll follow up with this case number.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And they did photocopy the letter and the envelope and all that stuff.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing else. I didn't talk to a police officer.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I just talked to a receptionist.

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So basically all it was was me handing over my letter and explaining what

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: happened in my concerns. And I got a case number for my case.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So honestly, it's probably pretty useless. Like if I thought,

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_01]: if I thought this patient was mad enough that he was going to do harm and

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_01]: violence to me,

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I was going to be really protected by the police because

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01]: stop. I have a case number. It wasn't really, anyhow,

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_01]: but I felt like everyone was like, you really need to do this. I'm like,

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_01]: okay, so I'm going to at least do something.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know what to do. So it felt like I could do something.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I did. But I mean, you get a letter like that.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And it, it's, it's, I mean, my heart, man, it was just,

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_01]: it was terrible. It was a really horrible day.

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I went home and found out we didn't have power. And just,

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_01]: it's just a rotten day. So I,

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I get up the next morning and I come to work with the

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_01]: generator still running hot mess walk in and then the sterilizer is not

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_01]: working. I'm like, great, this is awesome. Fantastic.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And then my,

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_01]: the same person trying to keep me from looking at the sterilizer gets the

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_01]: mail and says, Oh boy, we've got another letter.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_01]: We've got another letter and it's got the same handwriting. So

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, so just in that moment you get this really nasty letter,

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_01]: like threatening letter,

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_01]: and then you get a second one and you're looking at this thing before you

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_01]: open it up and I, oh my God, I was afraid.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I felt terrible. I was just like,

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, what now? So I opened the letter.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to read you the second letter from,

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_01]: and it gives this person's name,

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_01]: the same name that was on the envelope to Dr. Mead.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_01]: The previous letter I sent you was not intended for you.

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It was intended for Dr. Blank who's to be Frank,

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_01]: another dentist on the same road. We have multiple,

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_01]: there's a bunch of dental offices on the road that I practice on. So,

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_01]: he's, you know, there's several dentists that are literally like,

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, 500 yards down the road or closer than that. It's,

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_01]: uh, it was intended for Dr. So and so I'm a Vietnam vet with

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_01]: schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I was suffering with extreme symptoms with PTSD when I wrote it,

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I got mixed up and later realized I sent it to the wrong dentist.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm very sorry. Please forgive me.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I was without my anti-psychotic meds for a few weeks and lost control.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, I'm sorry. And he signed his name to it.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And so first off, uh,

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: what an awful, awful thing to be dealing with on for anyone. If,

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_01]: but also I felt a lot better because at least it wasn't this person,

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_01]: at least whatever they believed, it wasn't me that caused them this harm.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Cause to be perfectly honest, whether legitimate or not,

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_01]: it does not feel very good to know that someone is thinking of you in this

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_01]: way, especially when I didn't even know what was happening and I know who

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_01]: the person was. I didn't know anything like there's a lot of,

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_01]: a lot of question marks and all this thing happening.

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But now he thinks it's another dentist down the road. I'm not gonna lie to you.

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I still think it's my guy.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I still think it's the guy that I think it is because the handwriting is

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_01]: pretty good and I don't even know. And I'm not following up by the way,

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not doing that anymore. I'm done. I'm done worrying about it. Uh,

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I will say this.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Do I believe this person schizophrenic dealing with PTSD and was off their

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_01]: anti-psychotic meds? Actually, I kind of do. I kind of do.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_01]: The other thing that I think it could be is someone suffering from addiction

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_01]: who was spun out, whether they were in withdrawal or they were high as a kite.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I could see them doing the same thing. Um,

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_01]: but what I'm going to tell you is there,

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_01]: this person clearly had some mental health issues and they,

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_01]: they wrote this letter in, in a fit of rage. They were upset.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And they were focusing on whatever tooth problems they had had and,

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_01]: and thought that the person who,

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_01]: who did the tooth work on them was the cause of it. It's a scary,

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_01]: it's a scary place to be in. It's a scary place for me to be in as,

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_01]: as the focus of it. But also,

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_01]: can you imagine how tortured this person must be to have a written the

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_01]: first letter, which was pretty scary.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And then imagine what happened to this person in the meantime that they

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_01]: turned around and wrote another letter to me that came the next day

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_01]: apologizing because they think they sent it to the wrong place.

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And that they had had a schizophrenic break.

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_01]: They were suffering from PTSD and they didn't have their medications. I mean,

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I have no reason to believe that that's not what happened.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I also think to myself, there are people like this out there everywhere.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you think is more common?

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you think it's more common than everyone is just killing it the way that

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_01]: people on social media portray?

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Or do you think people like this that are suffering from mental illness stuff

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_01]: and not getting the treatment that they needed or not,

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_01]: or not handling it well or not having the support they needed.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you think is more common? I, I, I think probably it's the latter.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I think this poor suffering guy is probably the more common thing.

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And for a couple of days I wouldn't, before the second letter came,

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't have had a lot of sympathy for him because the letter that he

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_01]: wrote me, uh, wrecked my day, kind of freaked me out,

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_01]: had me on edge, kind of locking doors and stuff like that.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know what to think of it.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And then he let me off the hook by admitting that he had a psychotic break

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and that he wanted to be forgiven again. I don't even know who this person is.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't imagine that they would put their name on it, but here we are.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm asking you guys to imagine if this happened to you and how you would

[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_01]: handle it. And I would love to hear in the, in the Facebook group,

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to hear what you guys would do because I'm not sure.

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I, I, I'm, I'm not sure I handled it right at all. I tell you this,

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I slept better last night after I got the second letter than I did the first

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_01]: night.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And the other thing is am I the crazy one to have low enough self-esteem

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_01]: that I'm trying to pick through patients that might be mad at me in such a

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_01]: way like this and might be trying to sue me or whatever. I'm mental too.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's be honest. Uh, I'm,

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm also a little bit off my rocker, but I thought

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_01]: something nice, something good could come out of what happened here.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's me telling you guys about it because if you've had weird,

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_01]: crazy patient interactions and I know that we all have, frankly,

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_01]: this isn't the first one of the year that I've had a letter sent to me

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: that was alarming and wrecked my day for a couple of days.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And it also was a mental illness thing.

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_01]: It was also someone who clearly was wrote a letter

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_01]: in a state where they, they're,

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_01]: um, they were out of their mind at that point in whatever way they were.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And it wrecked my day the second time this year this has happened.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it's happened to other people or not, but I'm just,

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_01]: what I'm saying is there's a lot of people out there in the same way that

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_01]: you can't really know if the person who's portraying that they're killing

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_01]: it out there on social media is actually doing that. Well,

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_01]: you can't know how any person is actually doing with their mental health.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So I guess my thing is like, I mean, keep that in mind and maybe,

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe know that some people are really suffering out there and it's not obvious

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_01]: that they are. Um,

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_01]: our power came back on last night when I got home, the power was on.

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So that was a relief. Um,

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_01]: our sterilizer was fixed in relative quickly quick order.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh,

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Sean had studied for his geometry quiz before I got home.

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't have to do that with him last night.

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_01]: My week sort of shook out a little bit better and I slept a little

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_01]: better last night,

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_01]: but I just want you to think about patients that,

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_01]: that maybe have been disgruntled in the past through the lens of what else is

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_01]: that patient going through? Cause in a lot of cases,

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_01]: it may not be the dental care that you delivered that this patient is

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_01]: actually having a problem with. It might be coincidental,

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_01]: but they just had dental situation that maybe they don't feel turned out

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_01]: great or whatever and they're going through some other stuff.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I honestly don't know what other moral of the story there is.

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted to tell you that I got this crazy thing.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Someone like me gets these crazy things. If you get crazy stuff like this,

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_01]: know that you're not alone.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you get stuff that you're not sure how to handle and wonder about

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_01]: the rest of the world, you're not alone.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of weird stuff out there and frankly, uh,

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_01]: if you can laugh at it great, but also don't carry it alone.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I will say that I,

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I shared this with a lot of people that I'm close to and I trust,

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_01]: and they had a lot of useful suggestions. One of them was,

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_01]: you should probably let Dr X the other guy in the second letter,

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_01]: know that this letter came for the fact that maybe he needs to know

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_01]: the same thing, whether or not. And, and I did, I did that yesterday.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I sent him copies and I said, I don't know,

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what this is about. I don't know what happened.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I felt like you needed to know again,

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_01]: he did not have the person's name in his, in his patient base either.

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And he was appreciative that I sent him the heads up, but what a weird thing.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_01]: What's been a heck of a week. I'm about to cruise into my,

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_01]: my last couple of patients of the week and ready to go home.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited about that.

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I just thought it'd be an interesting thing to talk to you guys about.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So, uh, I appreciate you guys listening.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you join the Facebook group if you haven't yet? The very,

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_01]: go to the very dental Facebook group on Facebook, just search very dental.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to click on that. You're going to ask for an invite.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to ask you to give me one of five passwords.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_01]: You can give me Papa Randy Lipscomb, Hornbrook, McWethy or Timberman.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Any of those five will get you in and uh, that way you can come in.

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about this.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to hear some of the crazy stuff that you've gotten from patients

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_01]: or people or someone who might be suffering, who could use a little,

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_01]: who could use a little bit of help or understanding.

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks a ton for listening. You guys are really appreciated.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a good way for me to get this off my chest. I feel better already.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And next episode, I will finish. Thanks a lot. Bye bye.