The pain in my jaw had reached that tipping point. Could I suffer through it, or would I have to jump in front of the first bus? The last three dayshad beenunpleasant , but for some reason, as I walked to the dentist’s office, the throbbing that had been a discordant cymbal player morphed into a Mephistopholean version of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.<\/p>\n
I thought about my friend, Sharon, who developed RSD (Reflexive Sympathetic Dystrophy) after she separated her shoulder. My short, butchered form of this syndrome is that once the pain pathways have been established, the brain lays pavement for a superhighway. The initial injury heals, the pains remains, and as a free add-on, it gets worse. Now we have tandem tractor trailers rumbling up and down the Autobahn. In Sharon’s case, after failing to get relief from every pain pill on the planet, her inventive physician implanted a morphine pump which injects directly into her brain. The trucks now have softer tires.<\/p>\n
I thought about Sharon, because I couldn’t think about anything else. When I approached Dr. Wang’s receptionist, she looked up at me and asked, “Are you okay?” I wanted to ask her, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you drive a bus?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But then I realized she wasn’t asking about the tears on my cheeks, but about the blood on my forehead.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day I’d stacked new wood on the railings of my neighbor’s porch, which I had been hired to rebuild. As I stood in the yard, the pointy ends of those boards happened to be slightly lower than my forehead. Every time I looked down to pull a nail from my tool belt, or bent over to retrieve a dropped tool, I’d bonk the board. The first whack, cushioned by my glasses, produced a single drop of blood between my eyes. The second raised an ostrich-sized egg way up on what my brother, Peter, refers to as the living version of Half Dome. The third whack, a direct hit on the ostrich egg, struck oil.<\/p>\n
“You mean my forehead? It’s nothing.” I said.<\/p>\n
She handed me the requisite forms to fill out.<\/p>\n
“But you have blood all over you.”<\/p>\n
I had some blood, but it was not all over. Mostly on my sleeves, which served as emergency gauze pads. I wanted to engage this trim, sparkly blue-eyed, raven-haired receptionist in conversation, but I could only clench my teeth.<\/p>\n
After I’d scrawled through my health history, Dr. Wang ushered me into his office. I gingerly leaned back on his vinyl chair, and then a very strange thing happened. The pain disappeared. So completely I couldn’t identify the offending tooth. Nor could Dr. Wang, but boy, did he try.<\/p>\n
He tapped each tooth with the heavy metal handle of a dental probe. He began with my first upper canine and worked back. Clang. Nothing. Clang, nothing. Clang, still nothing.<\/p>\n
“Is it heat sensitive?” He asked.<\/p>\n
“I can’t even breathe in without pain.”<\/p>\n
He yanked his air gun from its cradle and hosed down the upper right side of my mouth. Nothing. He reached behind where I couldn’t see and returned with an instrument he dipped in ice, and then placed on each tooth. Still nothing. Finally he applied a similar probe, but this one with a red hot end. I could hear sizzling as moisture evaporated from the enamel, but I felt no pain. I thought about Dustin Hoffman in the movie Marathon Man.<\/p>\n
Dr Wang smiled; not a malicious Zell-like smile, but a caring, curious one. “This is like going to the doctor and having your symptoms disappear.” Take out the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153like,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I thought, this is the real thing.<\/p>\n
“I took Nuprin before I left. Do you suppose that’s the problem?”<\/p>\n
“It could be. Is that Ibuprofen?”<\/p>\n
I still had the bottle. I reached in my pocket, past my keys, assorted nails and loose change,and I pulled it out. There on the label it said – Ibuprofen.<\/p>\n
“I guess the anti-inflammatory did its thing. I’d been taking aspirin without much relief, but I talked to another dentist today and she said to take Advil, so I switched.”<\/p>\n
Frustrated, Dr. Wang held up the new x-rays and explained which tooth he speculated needed the root canal. The one capped by silver.<\/p>\n
“I could do a root canal on this one, or you could come back tomorrow when you’re certain which tooth hurts.”<\/p>\n
I opted for door number two.<\/p>\n
**********************<\/p>\n
Next week: That Filing Feeling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The pain in my jaw had reached that tipping point. Could I suffer through it, or would I have to jump in front of the first bus? The last three dayshad beenunpleasant , but for some reason, as I walked … Continue reading