Trumpâ(TM)s latest brain farts when he had to make shit up after the TelePrompTer failed during his July 4th speech makes it pretty obvious that heâ(TM)s got dementia. Taking over the airports in the war of Independence isnâ(TM)t just another blooper to be laughed away. The man is not aware of what heâ(TM)s saying!

The Republicans arenâ(TM)t stupid - at least not THAT stupid. They know that Trump is vulnerable to attack by Democrats on his record, his persona, his lies, his sucking up to dictators, etc. They will wait till the last moment, then use Article 25 to replace him.

Makes the whole impeachment thing go away, since they will make the case that heâ(TM)s not competent, not mentally fit to stand trial by the Senate.

The knives are not out yet, but they are being sharpened. The national nightmare will be over - but Pence can be even worse. From kleptocracy to theocracy. It really does end with a whimper, not with a bang.

This decade has been difficult. Broke my T6 at the beginning of the decade, the break was only detected in February when I broke the attached rib a few inches from the spine. Same doctor also found that I had broken my C5 5 years ago. Explains why my back hurts, my neck hurts, and I have lessened range of motion for my head.

Iâ(TM)m classified as low vision, with a 60 degree field of view, 20/400 in one eye, and last time it was checked, 20/70 in the other. Extreme colour blindness, night vision is like going around with sun glasses, cataracts that canâ(TM)t be operated on ... and I keep breaking bones in weird ways, same as when I was in my 20s, thanks to osteopenia.

I was seriously depressed because I could no longer do the job that I loved because using a computer was too much of a pain

But now Iâ(TM)m taking back control. Once Iâ(TM)ve finished retraining my eyes to adapt to current limitations, Iâ(TM)ll start doing what I think is worth developing. And if I canâ(TM)t, Iâ(TM)m not going to stress about it.

After all, if someone had told me when I was a kid that Iâ(TM)d retire early and be able to spend all day with my dogs, I would have thought that was amazing. And it is.

It puts stupidity like Facebook and Google surveillance capitalism in perspective. I donâ(TM)t need Google, and dropping my Android in a bucket of bleach was a blessing in disguise, I avoid Facebook like the plague, ditto all other social media, donâ(TM)t use webmail, and limit my online activity to The Guardian and, for now, slashdot (which has continued its descent into irrelevance - but I feel like slumming for a change).

It gives me a concise summary of just how dumbed down the Disunited States of Trump and Bozo BoJoâ(TM)s Brexit have fallen, as well as insights into their crazy self-destructive thinking.

Of the two, Brexit is the stupider - and exposes the lack of democracy in a country that still has hereditary Lords and Peers who arenâ(TM)t accountable to voters.

And yes, I think itâ(TM)s past time to abolish Canadaâ(TM)s appointed senate - itâ(TM)s not needed.

âoePlus Ãa change, plus Ãâ(TM)est la mÃme merde â" it must be slashdot!â

Going through the story comments, looks like slashdotâ(TM)s âoecommunity âoe has taken a hard turn to the alt-right.

Pretty much reflects what is f*cked up about the larger tech world in the USA - and the USA and the UK. The two predominantly English-speaking countries that are determined to go down the shitter pretty much in lock-step.

Government is broken at the very top in both countries. And in both cases, itâ(TM)s due to people getting the government they deserve - you voted for it, you wear it.

In both cases, it was people who are right-wing who are to blame. In the US, it was the fault of the DNC rigging the convention to try to force a right-wing neo-liberal down voters throats, in the UK it was conservatives putting party over governance.

Throw in global heating, private industry (Facebook, Google, etc) running surveillance capitalism that is more intrusive than the government of China, xenophobia and leaders who are clueless liars, and reality beats any novel of a dystopian future.

And tech is an integral part of the problem. And the only certainty is that tech will continue becoming more toxic. As will the people working in it.

But anything for a buck, right? Racism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, chemtrails, antivaxxers - the people maintaining the social media infrastructure could bring it to a halt quickly by simply refusing to enable it, but that toxicity makes their pay packets, and f*ck the rest.

It's been almost 4 months since that labour day weekend where no matter what the topic was, the usual creeps would pile on with their hate, but this time they were joined by others. 4 days of bullying and lies triggered a major depressive episode - which in a way is a good thing, because I was able to identify the cause, same as the one in June was caused by the sewer known as facebook. In both cases recovery was much quicker - 2-3 weeks, not 6 months or more. That is a huge relief. It's a waste of time dealing with a bunch of closeted (and not so closeted) InCels.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, everyone I volunteer with thinks I'm awesome because I'm such a hard worker, always ready to go the extra mile, even though I can't see too well.

My new Jack Russell is an amazing companion to the shih-tzu, who bosses him around event though the Jack Russell is 3 years older and more than twice the weight. People who see him now are amazed at how much better a dog he is. Walks on a leash properly, lets little kids pet him instead of getting too excited and scaring them away, not so hyper, even the former owner is amazed at what difference 4 months makes.

Ultimately, preparing and distributing weekly food baskets that make sure almost 1,000 people from 300 families have something to eat is a lot more gratifying than being a target of misogyny and trans-hate on the internet. I'm in a better place mental-health-wise now.

I'll check back once in a while if any of you care to reply.

Sex used to sell - now hate is king.

It's been known for some time that rates of mental illness increase with use of social media and other sites that allow "user engagement." We can continue to lie to ourselves that the benefits outweigh the risks, but I would invite you to look at how slashdot has changed over the years, then ask yourself if you would induce any woman (wife, significant other, sister, daughter, co-worker, etc) to visit the site.

Case in point: Google's firing of James Damore. One post in particular sticks out in my mind - a guy who said he hates all women because when he needed to get laid to "build up his confidence", no woman would have sex with him. Whether this is true or he was just trolling isn't the point - others backed him up. He took no personal responsibility for his failure with women - it never dawned on him that his attitude, that he believes it is the woman's obligation to be his personal cum bucket to stroke his ego (among other things), is a total turn-off.

Anyone who objected to Damore's screed was immediately labeled a social justice warrior. No further proof needed. All the first amendment loonies claimed that firing him was a violation of his constitutional rights, despite it being repeatedly pointed out that the first amendment doesn't apply to private businesses, and that workers have a right to a non-hostile work environment.

His screed has been repeatedly debunked elsewhere for those who want to search for it - I am going to concentrate on slashdot. The user population has changed. Women are now a legitimate target of hate speech, and woe betide those who come to our defense.

All web sites have a value proposition, but after incessantly experiencing the huge increase in hatred towards women, both genetic and trans, I'm saying "fuck it." This site is just too depressing. Upon further review, there really isn't much on the net worth my time, so I've decided to abandon all participation in any web site that allows user comments on articles, with the exception of checking in once in a while to see if Simon's posted a new BOfH story.

The real world has a better value proposition. For example, I was given a Jack Russell dog last month because the owner knew of my reputation with dogs and her son had moved to Asia. I have received a few dogs that way - but none off the net. The real world has user benefits that the net can't match, and won't, not even with virtual reality. It's far more edifying to meet other dog owners than wade through the doggerel of slashdot, far more effective to volunteer my time at the local food bank where I'm part of helping between 800 and 950 people a week than arguing with misogynists, and far easier to maintain relationships in the real world without the distractions devoid of any real value that most of the internet has become.

Anyone wanting to get hold of me can still do so via email, sms, phone call, or just drop in. They won't find me with my nose buried in "news for nerds" that has become "abuse from nerds."

Bye, and take care. I'll miss some of you, but certainly not this site.

In the last couple of weeks, 3 of my sisters, a neighbor, the therapist helping me explore job options for low vision work, and a couple of other people have told me that I've got to learn to say "No" more often. Not only was I running myself ragged volunteering, but I already knew I should have said no to a former co-worker who needed a place for him and his mother to stay.

They're both paranoid, and delusional, but I'll concentrate on him. I had told him years ago that if he didn't get professional help he'd be a 40-year-old virgin, and sure enough, he didn't, and I was right. He has always lived with his mother in what can only be called a co-dependent relationship that has mutated into elder abuse. When I found out that his mother was paying all the rent where they were staying ($1,400 a month, basically her entire pension) because he wanted to stay close to work, I immediately went from "this guy is fucked up" to "this guy is beneath contempt."

BTW, they don't need a 7-room place. No couch to sit on to watch TV, because no TV. No kitchen table and chairs. A cheap 120-volt stove (no wonder his mother didn't know how to fry an egg). Plastic cups. A few small folding tables like you'd set in front of the TV to eat off of to hold 2 computers. Twin beds (fortunately in separate rooms now - they weren't always). But with his mother stuck spending all her money on rent, she's dependent on what he buys, and he's a cheap bastard. He seems to think that grapes and soda crackers is an okay supper. She is the same, except that the times I brought her to the diner (she's obviously been socially isolated for the last decade at least) she really cleaned off her plate. I feel sorry for her. Like too many people approaching their 70s, they're vulnerable to the predations of their children. Especially since in their folie à deux, he really cranks her up.

His latest paranoid delusion is that his landlord, who lives downstairs, is using the sound of their footsteps to track them from room to room, moving an infra-sound projector that emits inaudible sound waves that are causing ear pain. In another building, it was another tenant's air conditioner, and the place before that, mold and noise. Multiple specialists have told him there's nothing wrong with his ears, so it's kind of obvious that his problem is between the ears. He's so paranoid that he glued the bottom flaps of his cardboard moving boxes shut "so that the movers couldn't get into them", so he has a room devoted just to uncollapsible moving boxes. Even a decade ago, he would insist on taking his backpack to the washroom with him because he didn't trust anyone, even though everyone else left their personal laptops behind when going for a snack, to eat, or to pee. He would cover his mouse with 2 layers of kleenex (germaphobe) just in case anyone else touched it. Oh, and he's anorexic. Doesn't trust most food. After a couple of decades, not only does he look like he has AIDS, but he's permanently damaged his skeletal musculature - he walks like an 80-year-old, with an 80-year-old's posture.

Things came to a head Sunday night. I had just entered the bathroom when he tried to squeeze in by me. I told him I was there first and he would have to wait. He kept on trying, so I pushed him with one hand - and even though it wasn't a hard push, he kind of went flying into the hallway's opposite wall. He's a real bag of bones with zero muscle tone.

I decided that this weekend would be his last. But first, I told him Sunday morning that he owed me money for him and his mom staying here. He said he'd bring it Monday, but snuck in real late Monday, left really early Tuesday, came back really late Tuesday night, and they were both gone Wednesday by 6 am. Problem solved, but I should have stuck to my guns in the first place - the last time he puled his nonsense, I told him never to contact me unless he's seen a psychiatrist, but of course paranoid people only see that as trying to exert control over them. And cash in advance. D'uh!

More good news. Not only are the crazies gone, but there's a Jack Russel at my feet. His owner asked me to baby sit him for a weekend, and then asked me if I wanted to adopt him. He was quite the handful the first week, but he's settled down nicely - he now walks properly on a leash, stopped humping everything in sight or trying to mark things. He's become really attached to me, following me everywhere. There were some problems with Jack, the little dog, but Jack put him in his place so it's all good.

But boy, does he crave attention, and lots of walking.

It's while I was walking the two of them that a guy almost half my age stopped to talk to me, asked me if I was single, and then asked for my phone number - several times. I've never looked my age, but I guess the increased estrogen is enhancing the desired effect.

My life - never boring.

The "repressed gay men hate transsexuals" has been proven in various court cases, but it's still a bit jarring to find it repeated in my face.

There's a guy who for several years made a habit of loudly insulting me in public. One day, he went too far - "Hey, are you like those shemales on Jerry Springer?" He was about 30 feet away when he shouted it. Pissed me right off, so I went up to him and said "You ever do that again and I'll call the cops and have you arrested for sexual harassment*. Do you really want to go around the rest of your life being on the sex offenders registry?"

He continued to talk against me behind my back. But at least not to my face.

One day I saw him walking along with a bicycle wheel, and asked him what he was doing. He said he was going to the garage to get a flat fixed, so I told him to wait and I'd fix it for free (our old man had taught me and my sisters to fix flats using nothing more than 3 tablespoons and a patch kit so he wouldn't have to over and over again).

It was after this that we ended up talking about the biological basis of transsexuality, and how transitioning to the other sex isn't a choice - it's what you realize you have to do when you have run out of choices to avoid the inevitable. How it's much better to live as who you are, and not what other people expect or demand you be, because you'll never please everyone anyway, and why should you? And how liberating it is.

So fast forward 5 years later, to last night. I'm walking my dogs (I babysat a Jack Russell last weekend and the woman was so amazed at how much calmer and happier he was that she asked me to adopt it) and he pulled up on his bike. He wanted to thank me for changing his life. What I had said had sunk in, and the next day he decided to tell his parents (and a few others) that he was pretty sure he was really gay, not straight. Later that very same day he went online and found a boyfriend, and they're still together.

So that cliché has a lot of the truth behind it. Repressed gay men do beat up on transsexual women, and them coming to terms with their sexual orientation makes the hate go away.

Please keep that in mind next time you see me getting slagged for being me - there's lots of truth in the conventional wisdom, and there are way too many repressed people out there looking for what they think is an easy target to make them feel superior, or at least distract them from their own issues, or turn their self-loathing against others..

I'll do my part by reminding them of what they're running away from :-)

* Yes, it's considered sexual harassment here - as well it should be. Any form of harassment based on sex qualifies. As one judge remarked, "if harassing someone because they used to be the other sex doesn't qualify as harassment based on sex, what does?" Transsexuals are a protected minority at both the provincial (for decades) and federal level (June 18th), unlike the USA.

Just one example of adults who don't want to grow up:

The expectation when I turned 18 was that I would continue my education, but work weekends and evenings to pay for it and get my own place, which I did. And the utilities, And clothes. And transportation. In other words, take responsibility for my life as an adult. I wasn't the only one who did this - my next 3 sisters also moved out on their own in their teens. We couldn't wait to actually be free - even though it meant lots of hard work.

And now we see a surfeit of 30-something and 40-somethings, still virgins, still living with mom, still spending their free time on the internet or playing video games because anything else is too threatening. The same characteristics that make tech a safe choice (no need for social skills, safely isolated from the general public, a culture of sublimating sadness with pissing contests and electronic toys) - well, what are they going to do when mom dies or gets placed in a long-term care facility? Or finds somebody else they want to make a life with and finally puts their foot down and (more than reasonably) says "grow the fuck up and get the hell out?"

They have no real-life skills. They haven't got the ability to break out of their isolation, or they already would have. They haven't developed the resilience to overcome a major life screw-up on their own, or in many cases even how to cook or shop for groceries ... or how to work the stove or washing machine.

Those in such situations for a prolonged period of time end up interpreting events in a different way than the rest of us. With time, it can pass the boundary of what we call "delusional." I've seen how they are now paranoid, germaphobic, refuse to eat a normal diet, become anorexic, friendless (except for their "best friend mom" who they have always lived with in a co-dependent relationship characterized by mutual isolation from everyone else), and rather than trying to get help with their psychological problems insist that their life is somehow a mark of superiority, that there is nothing wrong with them, there really are people following them and targeting them for misery using infrasound projectors and their co-workers cannot be trusted and there really is something wrong with their ears causing pain even though years of tests with specialists have found absolutely nothing wrong.

This 24-year-old is lucky - events have forced her to develop the necessary independence while she's still young enough to adapt. Someone in their 30's 40's or later? They never will. And when mom dies or goes into a home and can no longer pay the rent for both of them, they will become a 50-year-old virgin who will fully retreat into their paranoid delusions. It's always easier to blame someone (or everyone) else if that's all you've ever done.

I know too many people who are in their 30s and 40s who are still living with mom, whose evenings and weekends are filled with internet and video games (yes, one of them is a 40-yer-old virgin - I warned him 10 years ago to get help or this would be the end result because his paranoia was driving everyone else in the office nuts) and seeing every event, no matter how random, as justifying their paranoia.

I would say that most people who fail to launch have more than just an introverted personality - they're fearful of rejection - even though they spend so much time anticipating how every possible outcome of an event can be a sign of rejection, and then when it happens, "see - I told you so" - even when it's obvious to any outsider that it was either a coincidence or their behaviour became a self-fulfilling prophesy.

What would happen if people couldn't retreat into "safe" careers with other similar social misfits, such as tech? Or if people couldn't easily exchange (though they aren't really replacing) social contact with "social" media and video games?

Over the next 20 years, when tech becomes less and less of a viable career, where will these people go? I suspect they will fully retreat from reality. It's easier to play a game than go meet people (and certainly easier than getting a personality transplant). We worry about the future lack of jobs because of AI, but these people aren't really employable in jobs that require human interaction anyway, so the real factor that will characterize those who have jobs from those who do not will be the soft skills. The same soft skills that our smartphones and social media are destroying. "Job retraining" won't help them.

Trump is now tweeting about how he can pardon anyone, including himself. Ignoring for the moment that only crooks need a pardon, watch this guy, who said "I have never profited from public service, I did not obstruct justice, and I am not a crook." Trump is channeling Nixon.

Will it prove that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

It has now been more than 2 years since Trump was last seen without a jacket. Nothing since March 5th 2016. Combine that with his habit of sitting hunched over with his shoulders forward, is there more going on than meets the eye (or that he doesn't want to meet the eye)?

Trump's doctor has confirmed that Trump takes finasteride to promote hair growth.

Hmmm - that drug looks familiar ... it's the same drug that many male-to-female transsexuals take to suppress testosterone and eliminate erections. It's used in cases of prostate cancer, which are sensitive to testosterone levels. I know someone who had to go that route - after a year or two they were never without a jacket, and always hunching their shoulders, to hide gynecomastia.

It would also explain the late-night tweets and anger towards women, since he's probably impotent.

Others have speculated, a bit tongue-in cheek

And a more professional opinion from a plastic surgeon who deals in moobs

Hasn't taken his jacket off in more than 2 years, sits like he's trying to hide moobs, takes finasteride, borderline obese, in 70s, his behaviour is openly hostile to women (probably because women remind him of his moobs.

Anyone got a better idea to explain why he's never without a jacket and sits so strangely, especially with Angela Merkel?

Stupid tax department just sent me a notice re tax credits that I supposedly don't qualify for. The reason:

I was born here from Canadian parents, my old birth certificate says the same, and I sent them my certificate of change of name and designated sex (that's what we call it here), but somehow now I'm an undocumented illegal alien since, even with the paperwork, they can't connect the dots.

Maybe I'm dead to them. How much would you pay to have your existence to the government wiped clean? I also wonder:

• just how did I supposedly illegally enter the country?
• what is my country of origin?
• what is my citizenship?
• can I apply for refugee status????
• will they try to deport me?
• what happens to my medical coverage?

Bureaucratic errors tend to propagate. Kind of like cockroaches. But the tax man knows better than me, even though I sent them a copy of my certificate of change of name and sex. In the same envelope as the application for the tax credit. And that somehow their notice to me was delayed because the post office returned the notice because "they - the post office - couldn't find me so they had to do research to find my current address. Even though it was on the form. Even though the post office manages to send other stuff addressed to me.

This is not the first time that the tax man claims that the post office returned mail they sent. Nobody else seems to have that problem. Not other government departments. Not my bank. Not anyone else ...

I suspect someone in the department doesn't like transsexuals and destroyed the name change cert.

Hmm .. maybe I can get them to deport me to France or Germany, and then have them deport me back to Canada. Free travel both ways. Or I can apply for refugee status under the UN stateless persons provisions. After all, I now have proof from the government that I'm not a Canadian :-)

We had a major disaster here last month - more than 5,000 families flooded out of their homes. A month later, there are still those who have not returned home, and for many, their houses are red-tagged, meaning they will not be allowed to return. More on how I'm helping in a bit, but first ...

I've got a new endocrinologist to handle HRT (hormone replacement therapy), and he's tripled my dose of estrogen, which has not only completely crushed the depression, but it's had a totally unexpected side effect.

Turns out that estrogen increases muscle mass and strength even if you don't exercise. The last month, I've been really pushing myself physically helping almost every day, and in one month I've gone from ordinary to stronger than I've ever been. Embarrassingly so. And stamina ... well, I just don't need to take a break, even though it's heavy labour. Never thought that helping at a food bank would be so much work, but then again, they never saw ~ 100 tons of donations come in in such a short period. That's a lot of unloading, sorting, boxing, storing or shipping out to where it's needed, on top of what others have been doing feeding the victims who were evacuated by the military and fire departments, etc 3 meals a day, meals for volunteers working the sand bag crews, several fund raisers, and all sorts of other activities.

Last night I was helping get set up for today; I spent today helping prepare food boxes for more than 700 people, doing the heavy lifting others couldn't do, and all the gross jobs that I do because I wouldn't ask anyone to do something I wouldn't do myself. And I'll be at it again tomorrow, the day after, and as long as it's needed. I love it!

Not too shabby considering that 6 months ago climbing the stairs left me dizzy and out of breath, but that's what you get when you're so depressed you spend most of 3 years unable to stay awake or trying to fight the temptation to kill yourself.

3 years of hell because my endocrinologist wasn't following standards, and LIED about my test results being "perfect." Saw my last results on the 1st, from my new endo, and they are where they should be, but that's not what makes me so happy. I'm finally able to do something productive again. And the work is a lot more meaningful and a lot more rewarding than writing software.

I've talked with the families who have lost everything. I've seen how people come in just hoping for a little assistance, and when Jo-Anne takes them up and down the aisles with jumbo shopping carts and trolleys and encourages them to take more - "Do you need some of this too? How about some $INSERT_ITEM as well?" It's up-selling but at the end there's no bill. They are so grateful and relieved - but we're just as grateful to be able to help them, and for the donors who make it possible. When people are entrusting you with so much that you literally run out of space on a regular basis, it really makes you want to live up to that trust. We're really pushing ourselves, but we're determined to continue to do what I can only say is an awesome job.

Aside from my eyes, I'm simply in the best physical shape I've ever been in. Even spending my birthday Saturday in the emergency ward to get some anti-inflammatory meds (I stripped the protective membrane off a few bones - guess I overdid it a wee little bit) didn't slow me down. Fixed my back, improved my posture, and I've chopped 12 minutes of my best time biking to the hospital. Well, okay, my neck and upper jaw (from the dentist exerting way too much force and breaking my upper jaw and then yanking the broken piece out through my gums) and my eyes (which was expected) are concerns. But they're far outweighed by all the good stuff.

Disaster relief - hard but fulfilling. We've had major floods that have left thousands homeless. The public response has been simply unbelievable.

I volunteer at the On Rock food bank Monday mornings, helping prepare food boxes for more than 200 families. As we were finishing up Monday, a gentleman showed up who lives on Ile Bizard, and like many others living there, had been under a mandatory evacuation order because flood waters were several feet deep.

The city provided emergency shelter, but not for his dog (a pitbull), so the dog had been sleeping in the car. Realizing that most people would be reluctant to help because of the dog breed, I took them both in, and the only problem with the pitbull is she likes me so much that I have lots of scratches on my arm. It will probably be another week before they can move back. I'm okay with that.

Tuesday evening the regular volunteers got an email asking us to come in because it was literally "Christmas in May." Sunday (today) is the first day that I haven't been helping everyone schlep tons and tons of donations from trucks and the donation bins we had put outside so people could drop the food off quickly, which at one point were filling up as fast as we emptied them.

The response of the entire West Island community has been - well, you'd have to see it to believe it. Prepared meals to be distributed to the displaced - a lot of them donated by restaurants who are, together with the donations to food banks, feeding thousands of people, plus emergency crews and the military, 3 times a day.

All the extra hands that showed up to help made a huge difference - often, it was entire families, including little children. And yes, those kids were NOT in the way at all - they were able to help with things like sorting and moving 15-packs of toilet paper, freeing the adults to take care of heavier items. And they never lacked for LOTS of supervision.

I just got a text saying I won't be needed until tomorrow morning, so I have time to write this. This disaster has brought out the best in people, and I've gotten to meet and work with many of them.

The flood waters might be receding, but it's not just the people who were flooded out who need help. Businesses have closed, and some may not reopen, the loss is so great. People will be thrown out of work. Some who are moving back home don't have a working fridge, stove, or microwave, and what food was left behind has to be thrown in a dumpster, along with furniture, clothes, children's toys, carpeting, floors and walls ...

The state of emergency will be lifted at noon, but the military will be staying, and people will continue to help each other out, because that's what needs to happen, and West Islanders will continue doing amazing things.

There is one sour note. A waitress took a couple of days off to help out her neighbors, and was suspended. She's now looking for another job. Hopefully one of the many restaurants who repeatedly donated so much will realize the value of such a worker.

PS: Happy Mother's Day.

I'm royally pissed off - again - so I'm just writing this for future reference. Sorry if it rambles a bit

But first a question for you to think about while you read this - who owns your teeth after they've been extracted? This is not a random question.

The dentist's receptionist/mother called, asked me to bring the x-ray, which I did. Of course, the dentist never showed her face even though I was there for almost 2 hours, just to get a referral to a maxillofacial surgeon. I'd be hiding too if I broke someone's upper jaw. Then she made a serious mistake.

She phoned me and once again accused me of stealing MY tooth. How can you steal your own tooth? Beats me. I never signed a release transferring ownership. The procedure was finished, so I took my tooth - with the piece of broken jawbone attached. My dentist claimed it was illegal, but I seriously doubt it. It was on the tray in the kitchen, my sister had come to pick me up (good thing - I was a bit wobbly after being frozen 4 separate times because she wasted time on other stuff. Now she's claiming I "stole it from her lab." Even though there's no sign calling it a lab, no "do not enter", she refers to it as the kitchen in regular conversation, and it has a kitchen counter, cupboards, sink, etc. She even said that her assistant had "contaminated the kitchen with blood from (my) teeth" and everything had to be sterilized. It's a kitchen, dammit!

But of course today the facts have changed. Supposedly, she told me before I left that they needed to keep it. A lie, but if she had asked, I would have said okay, same as when her mother called at 8 pm to ask me to bring it back to be sent out for analysis, I agreed to have it there by 9:15 am the next morning). Her mother also now claims I was told the same thing before I left, but shut up when I said "You weren't even in the room so you don't know what was said.".

Anyway, I invited them - no, I urged them - to call the police on me. "So call the police. Tell them I stole my tooth. I'll be quite happy to tell them what happened"' Of course, they wont. You can't steal what's always been yours.

They tried to use the dental code of ethics against me. Turns out they don't even know the law. The dental code of ethics only applies to the dentist, not the patient. Also, they were shocked to find out that the code of ethics is provincial law, and the order of dentists only has authority to apply it to dentists. Unlike her, I've had cause to read the code of ethics recently, and contrary to her assertion, it says nothing about her owning any teeth that are extracted. Wonder how many gold fillings she squirrels away ... reminds me of the nazi death camps "recovering" gold from their victims.

She left me a nasty voice mail after I said I'm going to sue. On the voice mail, she used this phrase: "You stole the evidence!" Damn right it's evidence. I'm glad I took MY tooth back, because it's proof of negligence. Calling it "evidence" is a Freudian slip. Examining it and the jawbone it's embedded in, it's obvious she should never have forced in both directions, because she had only cleared part of one side and, near the end. she started alternating leverage (not forceps - a #303 root tip elevator). She said that it was better to cut the gum and drill away some bone than to just pull the tooth out. Well, turns out that using an elevator has the known risk of fracturing the maxillary (upper jaw).(scroll down to #64.2, also quoted below)

The elevators work by using the jawbone as a fulcrum or pivot point, which is why applying excess pressure using the mandible as a fulcrum can fracture it. This is a known problem, even on people who don't have soft bones. She can't claim ignorance about my soft bones because she has been complaining on previous visits that I have soft bones (I told her I have osteopenia) - and besides, she knew the bones were more fragile than normal. She was always complaining about how the bone under the point where the fulcrum of the root elevator resting against the jawbone would peel off under pressure. She was negligent in applying excess force on a known fragile mandible.

In other words, she should have done it the old-fashioned way - forceps, instead of applying pressure to the mandible. BTW, it's been 22 days and my neck is still sore. That's a LOT of pressure she applied. Upon encountering too much resistance, she could have removed more bone from around the root as a precaution. How hard can it be to take off more, since it's not that hard anyway, right?

The worst part is she should have sent me to the emergency department of the hospital - they could have removed the tooth from the broken jawbone and re-implanted the broken section, and with a little bit of support to immobilize it, it would have healed on its own. That would have been a lot more constructive than running from the room in a panic and screaming that she broke my jaw and I'm going to need a bone graft and who's going to pay for it? (hint: Pottery Barn rules apply, especially in cases of negligence. You broke it, you pay for it)

Then again, when there's a known elevated risk of fracture even on patients without soft bones. She was negligent to attempt the procedure in the first place.

She should have informed me of the elevated risk of fracture of the mandible in my case and offered to refer me to a maxillo-facial surgeon, but never did.

What makes it worse was that she was going on, just before the fracture, about how increased pressure (remember, she had had a melt-down after arriving) just brings out the best in her skills. In retrospect, this is her trying to convince herself that she had the skills to do the extraction despite the resistance, and this led her both to ignore the fracture when it happened, and the subsequent strangeness of a tooth not coming out despite floating fairly freely (because the piece of jaw attached to it was no longer attached to the rest of the jaw). The broken bone dragged against the rest of the mandible for a minute to a minute and a half - a quick look-see would have shown the bone that the tooth was embedded in was now moving around, making it obvious the jaw had fractured and to stop trying to pull the broken bone through the soft tissues.

It's going to take half a year to fix this crap. You couldn't pay me to go through it - but I have no choice - and now I don't feel guilty about asking a court to force her to compensate me. I've been called lots of things, but never, ever a thief. So yes, I'm royally pissed off. Both at her dissimulation, and her attempts to place blame on me.

Oh, and she still insists that my bones are soft because I take too much estrogen. Again, I reminded her that I have regular blood tests, and they show the exact opposite. She claims she has special training in endocrinology. She's full of shit, or she'd know that blood tests are definitive.

Everything that happens is always someone else's fault. She's going to learn that if you're always blaming others, the problem is most likely you, not them. Oh, and I have her on billing fraud against the government. And regularly violating patient confidentiality. This will be "interesting times."

Anyway, sorry for the rambling on - I just want to get the facts down immediately, for future reference. As usual

Turns out that the rules of small claims court have been broadened. Any claim of up to $15,000 can be submitted. That's probably the fastest, and cheapest, way to resolve the problem with my dentist.

She had sent me to get a panoramic x-ray, I went and had it done, brought it back, and as I walked in she told me to get out and make an appointment. To drop of an x-ray! That takes nerve.

There were patients waiting, so maybe they had second thoughts after seeing me angry.

That's the first time I've sworn in public this decade. Well past due. Also, research shows that the panoramic x-ray isn't needed - we already know the jaw was fractured - I've got a piece of it in a bottle attached to the upper left canine (tooth 23). She should have either referred me immediately to a maxillofacial specialist of the trauma section of the local hospital's emergency department, where they can do a proper, higher-resolution image. The panorex is shit in comparison.

But first I want to see my GP to get a referral to the surgeon. And I want to file an official complaint with the order of dentists. I can do the complaint this week, but the referral will depend on how long it takes my GP to get the test results from the nuclear medicine dept (tomorrow) and cardiology lab (the day after) - stress test (just as a precaution - there's nothing whatsoever wrong with my heart even though both my parents died early of heart attacks - my father at 47 and my mother at 59, and I'll be 61 in June). They'll tell me the delay, and I'll walk across the street and book an appointment for the day after she should receive the results.

And maybe have my neck checked at the same time. 3 weeks later, and it still hurts to look either side from all the force she applied.