Five Weeks Out

He was only prepping for a crown. Two hours later I found myself in the middle of discomfort, lasting longer than discomfort should; four weeks, five days, three trips back to the chair for evaluation and countless capsules of pain relief, all so that I could gratefully encounter a nearly desperate visit to Dr. Smith's (endodontist) office for further examination, or so it seemed at 8:30 Monday morning. I was exhausted. I was hungry. I was tired of the pain.

Is it not amazing how an undetected fracture in a tooth can cause so much trouble? Are my daily tests not proof enough that an added dose of aggravation and frustration and the inability to ingest enough calories to keep me from becoming noticeably irritable would render me a complete failure in front of children who have helplessly endured a mother who has lost the patience she tucked away for a rainy day? Not to mention the hovering cloud that grows darker with doubt, waiting to burst forth with its financial burden of a crown, root canal, possible extraction and implant, threatening to drown out the positive frame of mind I'm trying so hard to maintain in consciousness. I have already learned to surrender each night to the throbbing in my mouth that feels like a band aid wrapped too tightly across a freshly cut finger.

Dr. Smith returns after the x-ray with his assistant who proceeds to inform me they've had a cancellation. Would I be able to stay and do a root canal, that which on-going symptoms confirm I should not put off any longer? I argue silently to myself, "this wasn't suppose to be a root canal," as I follow the assistant to a new room, to sit in a new chair to reflect on past memories of root canals after several injections of a local anesthetic.

Yesterday calls me back to the dentist's chair at 2:00p.m. for relief from the jolting pain of the tooth that continues to settle up, and not down even after all its nerves have been scraped clean like a Halloween pumpkin. More of the temporary is shaved away as the dentist reassures me that I'm going to get better this time, and he says it with such conviction that for the first time in five weeks, I want to believe him, though I'm still downing 600Mg's of Motrin every six hours. I try to remind myself that there is joy in knowing

I have access to dentists who specialize in state-of-the-art equipment and procedures.

It is me instead of my child.

The worst possible outcome, tooth or no tooth, is a complete recovery down the road.

This pain is not even comparable to the rest of the world's.