Constant Change
By DR. JOHN F. MILLER DDS - SMILE MONTANA
I am in my 45th year on this blue cosmic space marble. At this point I no longer live life thinking, "if I can just get over this hurdle it'll be smooth sailing" because of the "fool me twice" thing. More like fool me 4381 times, etc. Shame on me. There are a lot of false summits on this journey and they all come with a great view of the next higher peak. The only way to prevent this is to stop climbing. So, while I feel life is the most challenging presently, I also have the most joy, happiness, and satisfaction with it all. So I guess I'll just keep on truckin' for now.
It's interesting to look back and identify the little moments that totally impacted your life. In 1999 I was in a little Community College class called “The Internet” and I distinctly remember my instructor at the beginning of class about midway through our semester telling us, "there is a new search engine that we are going to try out." You guessed it, it was Google.
Now, 26 years later, I'll just go over my last 24 hours with Google. Google informed me (unsolicited) that I could get to Glacier International Airport in 14 minutes and that traffic was light. I did not need to go to the airport, I picked up my wife the same day the week before so Google thought maybe that the airport was my new Friday thing. It's not. Google also let me know that it went ahead and stylized a photo for me from my archive stored in Google Photos. Thanks Google.
Continuing on, I also used Google's email service Gmail as probably most of the world did. I used Google Maps to help me not miss that sneaky turn onto MT Hwy 141 after the Swan on my way to Helena. IYKYK*. It also tells me that there are "police" ahead...good looking out Google. I was going to Helena because my Google Calendar made sure I didn't forget about the Guardians of the Grind Rail Jam that my son was participating in. I used Google Chat to message my daughter who lives in Guatemala. And finally, I am using Google Docs via Google Drive right now to convey these thoughts to the lovely ladies that put this rag together. Google is omnipresent in our everyday lives. It's a recognized verb.
Now, if we thought Google did a good job at infiltrating our existence, let's discuss social media. I received my undergraduate degree from Arizona State University in 2007. At that time ASU had one of the largest student bodies in the nation...like 70,000 students give or take. So with that many students ASU had a massive computer lab called the Computing Commons. There were hundreds of computers in there and you would stand in a long queue and wait for one to come available. It was there at the start of that line that a display appeared one day of a very attractive young lady with the caption, "She's on Facebook, are you?"
It was great marketing because the first thing I"googled" (see what I did there) once I made it to a computer was Facebook. I did not sign up, in Facebook's infancy you could only sign up if you had an official college email address ending in "edu" from an institution they chose to include. ASU was an obvious early choice due to its size and reputation. I was graduating soon and was going to lose my school email, and besides I didn't realize the phenomenon it would become.
Obviously, I did eventually create a profile and was sucked in. I uploaded pretty regularly. Mostly pics and vids of my young family. Then moved onto Instagram which I use almost exclusively now. So, just how Google likes to stylize photos or give me traffic information unsolicited, Facebook does this thing where it'll say "look back" on this post you made on this day 12 years ago. The vast majority of these are posts of my children so Facebook is basically asking, “is it cool if I make you laugh and cry at the same time? Is it cool if I slam into focus the silent blur of your life flying by never to be experienced the same way again? Can I do that to you while you eat your lunch? Have a pleasant afternoon."
These constant reminders gave me a startling realization that we don't get our kids for 18 years. We get this specific kid for maybe 3 to 6 months before they are a totally new kid. Yes, I am with my kids every day, but I will never be with my kids when they are 4 years old ever again. It really takes a kid moving out to fully comprehend this and that is why the youngest kid is the spoiled one, it's their parents last chance. I look at my family now and think, I get these kids for maybe a year and then they are whole new kids. This new mindset has helped me tremendously in being more present and soaking it all up.
Man I am really in my feels on this one ladies. I guess my point is life is dynamic and things change. In dentistry we recommend being seen every 6 months by your dental provider. In a perfect world everyone would have their own personalized interval based on their specific oral health needs but for simplicity's sake we go every 6 months. There are unique cases where we do recommend more frequent check-ups.
Oral health problems typically progress slowly so if we are getting eyes on things twice a year with the recommended annual x-rays, we can identify problems early in order to repair and/or reverse them. What are the advantages of this? You save time. You save money. You prevent discomfort. You reduce inflammation. You preserve your natural tooth structure. You maintain the function of your teeth to eat, smile, speak, and support your facial tissue. You maintain a youthful smile.
You might ask, what can change in 6 months? Welp, just like Facebook reminds me, a lot. You could have changes in your diet. You can start a new medication that slows down the flow of saliva. You can have stressful things that cause clenching and grinding. Your mouth is like your car or your house, every once in a while it needs to be properly cleaned. I'll end with a personal experience that I had recently at my Kalispell Smile Montana location. It was a pretty normal day which most of them are these days. In my profession you want normal uneventful smooth going days. The only thing that stuck out to me as I reviewed my schedule ahead of time was that I was seeing a 94 year old patient for what we call a limited exam. It just means this patient has a specific tooth or area that is a concern to them.
I had never met this patient and I just assumed it was someone with pretty limited faculties and they would be accompanied by a child or caregiver. Boy was I wrong. This lady drove herself (?!?), spoke to me in great detail about the NFL which she was obsessed with, and had a small piece of a tooth break which we were able to repair. She was born around 1932, meaning her permanent teeth started showing up around 1938. Meaning her teeth have been chewing up food since before World War II. This blew my young assistants' mind and just goes to show how durable teeth can be when taken care of. Life changes, your teeth don't have to.
This article will see you through the holidays so God bless. Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. I'll check back in 2026.
*If you know, you know
Read Constant Change and other Smile Montana articles by Dr. John F. Miller, DDS, in 406 Woman magazines.