A couple of weeks ago, Criss had to be in Tiranë and so he scheduled his mid-service dental cleaning and thankfully there is not much to write about on this. It was like going to the dentist anywhere, except you don’t understand anything they say.

Pictures would have been impressive, but Criss did not take his camera on this trip. The dental office was modern with very current equipment. The air conditioning was greatly appreciated as the temperature was already in the low 90’s by late morning.

The cleaning and checkup was delivered efficiently and overall, Criss was very pleased. The cleaning was performed with ultra-sound so the usually painful scraping was avoided. The more difficult stains are removed with an abrasive strip, or a high-pressure wash with bicarbonate soda.

Back at the PC office, the volunteers compared experiences and found the dentist made the same diagnosis to all of us “mature” volunteers: we have old fillings that need to be replaced and where the gums are receding to expose the root of tooth, we should have a filling to keep the area from getting worse. We have all gotten the same diagnosis about the old fillings in the states, but the filling around the gums was new. We all declined to have the services done, not because we did not trust the dentist, but because we were not convinced it was necessary at this point.