Toothache in Tirana: Ken Gibbs

I slept badly because my tooth ached.  Actually, it felt like it was on fire.

How to find a dentist that you feel you can trust not to infect you with hepatitis ?  Well, just phone the ABC - the Albanian-British Collaboration or some such title - so I did.  I had been told that ‘even’ the British Embassy uses the ABC but was hoping that this was not a commentary on how inexpensive it would be.  I get a charming lady on the other end who says that they don't do anything themselves but only recommend well trained dentists who speak English.  

'You have a problem with your teeth ?' 

'Well, er, yes.'  

'Then phone Mr XYZ (which, luckily, was spelled out as it was completely unpronounceable) after 4pm weekdays and 12 noon on Saturdays.  He is British trained - as if this makes him an angel of mercy.  My experience of British dentists suggests otherwise.

The time is 09:00 and the fire feels like it is being fed high octane fuel.  As there seems nothing else I can do, I start work to try to take my mind off the problem.  Periodically, it feels as though someone has opened up with an AK47 right through my head.  

At 4pm on the dot, I phone.  No answer.  OK, so we are observing Albanian time zones today.  I phone at 4:30pm and am told to phone back in '20 minutes'.  At 4:50, I phone.  No answer.  OK, so he is busy.  At 5:15, I phone.  No answer.  At 5:30 I phone, and it is answered by the dentist himself who describes how to get to him, and who says that he will see me just after 6:00.  The instructions are to find the yellow building some 300 metres after the Tirana International Hotel; and his clinic is on the second floor.  Great.

I walk down to the Tirana International Hotel and go around 300 metres down the road and find a yellow building.  Can't find a front door.  Don't they have doors to buildings here in Albania, I wonder, or have these all been stolen ?  Eventually I find a dental clinic in the building next door which is definitely NOT yellow, but is a dark blue with flecks in it.  I figure that if I have found a dental practise I can't be too far away from my destination.  The curiosity is that this dental practise has a door that gives straight on to the sidewalk and you can see the dentist working on his patient only two or three metres inside.  Weird, and probably difficult to keep sterile.

I show the dental nurse the name of the dentist I am supposed to be visiting in the hope that she might be able to help.  She can.  She speaks English and tells me that it is the next yellow building that only happens to be about 300 metres further on.  I am beginning to hope that the dentist will not have to measure me for something as his estimate of distance may leave a little something to be desired.  Eventually, I think I’ve found the correct yellow building because I can see a sign which says something like, "Klinik Dentare" on the second floor which is where I had been told he was.  Wonderful.

Next, to find a door into the building.  Same problem.  No door.  Walk up and down twice trying to solve the engineering of entry into a building without a door.  Perhaps they stole all the doors here, too?  No; perhaps the entry is at the back ?  Accordingly, I pass through an archway into the courtyard at the back and find, well hidden, an entrance to a stairwell.  I climb and find a notice scribbled on the wall with an arrow to "Klinik Dentare".  I knock on the seemingly correct door and get no answer.  Since I am sure that this must be the right door, I knock again.  I wait five minutes and knock a third time, and finally the dentist opens the door himself.  He is working without a nurse or other helper.  He invites me in.

The dentist examines me and says he needs an X-ray but he doesn't have an X-Ray machine.  For this, I have to travel to the far side of Tirana, which I do the following day, having nursed the tooth through one night of hope and whisky.  I think the whisky was marginally more helpful.

The X-Rays were done quickly, efficiently.  Very expensive they were, too; for foreigners are charged double the rate that nationals pay.  For the two X-rays, I was charged US$6.00 (£4.oo).  In northern Iraq, I was charged 30¢ for two X-Rays.  Ah, well, when in pain, pay the going rate even though in terms of the area of the product, these come out at about 200 times more expensive than the best wool carpet you can buy in Britain.  Still only a fraction of what we would pay in the UK for X-rays, to be sure.

I must wait the afternoon out until I meet the dentist again - at 6:15.  It can't be too soon.  I fear a root canal.  I hope the whisky lasts.

At 6:10pm I present myself achingly with my jaw on fire.  The dentist is treating a patient and asks me to sit and wait.  Twenty minutes later, he invites me in and does a very close examination of the X-Rays.  He asks what symptoms I have had which I describe in graphic detail.  He just grunts.  He asks if I have ever had any problems with a local anaesthetic ?  No ?  Good.  He administers it.

Ah !  What happy relief !

Now comes the usual hammering and chiselling and he finds a ‘nasty’ buried deep; grinds away to his satisfaction periodically grunting and asking me to rinse.  Twenty minutes later he says that it should settle down but may be 'tender' for a while.  The bill ?  A staggering £2:50.  This is for two sessions, some fluoride, local anaesthetic, and a temporary dressing.  I had to ask him twice because I didn't believe it.  It's real.

The following day, that little chap who used to reside in my jaw with jack-hammer seems to have taken a holiday.  Tender, yes; but decidedly better than yesterday.  As a friend once said, the time is a little after tooth-hurty.  Thank heavens.

Interestingly, on returning home where I had a long-standing dental appointment set up, I asked for the temporary dressing to be checked and made more permanent since I didn’t want a repeat performance – the whisky stocks couldn’t handle it.  

After an examination of the tooth, the dentist said that whoever had done the work was excellent.  “Such a dentist would be a credit to our practice,” he said.  Apparently both an angel of mercy and skill!

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