Brighter Smiles In Heaven

Heaven will smile brighter now that they have a very well liked Master Dentist! My dentist past on Tuesday from a very rare disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or CJD. He was only 54. I met the good doctor years back when he started his practice in the small village I lived in. He was a kind and gentle man who cared about the people he saw. They were not just patients to him. I have a very large phobia about dentists and it took a lot for me to go. After the first visit with the fine doctor I found I was much more at ease with him. One night while I was sitting at home I received a telephone call and it was the fine doctor on the other end. He ask me if I could come over to his office because with me being the Township Fire Chief I might know where the slight smell of smoke was coming from. He didn't want to bother the rest of the department if it turned out to be nothing. We found where the smell was coming from in no time flat. His office bordered an apartment and when they cooked he got the smell coming through the walls. The woman in the apartment must of burnt a lot of food. LOL Well with my phobia and all I still found it difficult to go to the dentist as much as I should but one night I was in extreme pain from a bad tooth ache. I could not even pick my head up it hurt so bad. I called the good doctor and he told me to give him 30 minutes and he would be right at his office. When I got there he was there as well as a nurse also. He pulled the bad tooth and when I went to pay him he looked at me and said with all the help you do with the community "NO CHARGE"! That was the good doctor.
CJD is a rare and always fatal neurological disease that strikes about one in a million each year. CJD turns the brain to sponge. Early symptoms may include anxiety, memory loss, impaired thinking, blurred vision, fatigue and involuntary movements to name a few. Death is usually within the year of diagnosis. It has been recognized since the early 1920's. It has a variant form which many of you may know as Mad Cow Disease Although CJD can not be transmitted through causal or intimate it can be transmitted by way of transplants of corneas or brain membranes if the tissue donor has CJD.
The good doctor leaves his wife and 3 teenage children who got to spend time with him before his death. He was very well liked in the community where he lived. He had many friends. He was a very happy go lucky man. When he first found out at the Mayo Clinic that he had CJD he said "Well it sucks to be me". That is how he was trying to take the edge of of a bad situation. The good doctor will be missed. My heart goes out to his family and my prayers are with them.