Let the Healing Begin

It's hard to think of anything else when your teeth hurt and for the past few days, though the pain has been gnawing away at me for weeks, I have been suffering - because no other word aptly explains how horrid this has been - the most agonizing tooth pain ever.

Last night I couldn't fall asleep. I tried everything I could think of. Every position I could possible fall asleep in. Cold compresses. Hot compresses. Brushing my teeth. Holding my hand against my cheek. Watching QVC. (Hey. Never rule out boredom.) Until finally, a little after four this morning, my body finally shut itself down and allowed me two hours of sleep before my dratted alarm went off.

My appointment at 12:30, I spent most of the morning in my office in a most unnaturally quiet state. A sure sign I'm not feeling well at all when my mouth isn't moving a mile a minute. Pretty much ignoring the general chatter, I focused on taking the morning second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, phone call by phone call. Not an easy task when you're tooth is throbbing to the point that your ear feels like it's going to start gushing blood at any moment. Talk about good times ...

Anyhoo I didn't expect much of anything today other than a preliminary appointment. You know, the appointment before the actual appointment sort of thing. However Dr. K. - who I will now say is my absolute hero - took one look at my mouth, one look at my x-ray and said in no uncertain terms that he was going to take care of me today. Swear to God, if there hadn't been a ring on his finger, I would have gotten down on one knee and sworn eternal love to him.

That was until I saw the tool cart. Then my nerves returned and I was a quivering mess of fear.

"How bad is this going to hurt?" I asked while trying to appear calm and collected.

"No worse than getting a cavity taken care of." I pretended to be reassured. She saw right through me. "Don't worry. You're going to feel so much better by the time this is over." I held onto my doubts.

Clutching the hand rest as Dr. K. inserted the needle to numb my mouth, I was hard pressed to keep from smiling as my eyes peered into his, optical enhancements and all.

And then it began ... And just to quote Dr. K. "How on earth did you manage to handle the pain for so long? Your tooth is completely inflamed." See, I told you all it hurt!

Rather than go through the entire process of the much aligned ROOT CANAL I will end by saying that is was far less painful than having a tooth extracted. Way less. And on the bright side, tonight is the very first night where I actually feel like me again! The excitement!