I gave my tooth a fond farewell this week. A backwards glance at it’s disgusting self was all that it received. It certainly deserved nothing more after having tormenting me for 17 years. Who would have thought that a hockey stick to the face could be so serious?
I had thought that any dentist could pull a tooth out of your mouth. I still have a picture in my head of how I could do it at home, by tying a string to my tooth and the other end to a door handle; and then slamming the door. Instead of a dentist, though, I was referred to a maxillae facial surgeon. I suspected that a dentist with a name like that, would have a whole different level of skill. No doubt he would charge for it too!
My fancy pants dentist picked up a pair of pliers, grabbed my tooth, stopped short of resting his foot on my shoulder, and yanked the thing out. For that amount of skill I knew that the bill would be astronomical and I was not wrong! Looking at the tooth though, I had to give it the man; it really had outlived its time in my mouth. It was not pretty!
The whole tooth thing got me thinking about them times long ago. What on earth did a cowboy in leather pants and spurs, crossing the great western plains on horseback, do when tooth pain struck? Or one of King Shaka’s warriors happily stomping on thorns in his loin cloth but brought to the ground by a throbbing ache in his skull? Did you bribe your best mate to knock it out with a big rock? Or did you just take the pain and hope that this too would pass.
And for some unlucky ones, the bad tooth would become an abscess which would then infect the brain, causing an agonising death. Yes, death from a tooth ache!
Seems so silly yet I would imagine that it still happens today. Not to us privileged few, not in our world of advanced health care and maxillae facial surgeons.
The last couple of weeks have clearly pointed at the incredible importance of one’s health. Without it we may get an understanding of the meaning of life a lot sooner than we wanted!
Showing posts with label tooth infection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tooth infection. Show all posts
Friday, July 23, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Still on about my tooth
I thought that I should share this picture to highlight the dangers of problem teeth! This was before everything really swelled up; when woman and children ran from me screaming in horror...
At 08h00 on Monday morning, I be in the enviable position of being horizontal with my eyes closed. The dentist however, will probably have one foot on my shoulder, with his hands tightly clamped over a pair of vice grips, while he attempts to remove this evil force from my mouth.
And for some or other reason, after 17 years of hassles with this tooth that was knocked out by a wild woman weilding a hockey stick, I am rather excited!
At 08h00 on Monday morning, I be in the enviable position of being horizontal with my eyes closed. The dentist however, will probably have one foot on my shoulder, with his hands tightly clamped over a pair of vice grips, while he attempts to remove this evil force from my mouth.
And for some or other reason, after 17 years of hassles with this tooth that was knocked out by a wild woman weilding a hockey stick, I am rather excited!
Thursday, July 8, 2010
On Vacation
I can feel it!
My life over the last 5 days has been a haze of pain and drugs. A problem tooth in my mouth has reacted rather strongly to the concept of me being on holiday. To the extent that my gums, my top jaw, my lip, my nose, and cheeks have swollen! My top lip got so big at one point that its inside had rolled outside. It even got sunburnt, which is not surprising considering that it has never seen the sun except for the reflections off my teeth!
Right now I feel as if I have the worst head cold ever, have gotten terribly sunburnt on my face, and have been hit in the face with a baseball bat. That’s probably an under exaggeration! I feel much worse than that!
I am very lucky that I do not feel pain...
But this I can feel...
It has however given me time to pause and I am a little surprised at some of the gems of insight that have come to the fore. So instead of writing about my holiday woes, I will beguile you will some of my new hallucinated pearls of wisdom!
1. I have not been able to smile in days. As a result, I have this feeling that I am unhappy. Truth be told, I am rather unhappy. The thing is that smiling often makes a bad situation better somehow, whether it be the hormones released by one’s body or the purely psychological reaction of one’s mind to smiling. I miss smiling; it certainly helps make bad things bearable!
2. Intense pain saps ones inner resources. It must take a super human effort for any cancer, or any other painful disease sufferer to get up every day and work through debilitating pain. This has to be especially difficult when there is no end in sight. For the first time in my life, I have considered how difficult it is to wake every morning, if one slept at all, and face another day of painful life. I have never understood how anyone could chose to die rather than live out the gift of their life. Now I have an inkling of how terrible this kind of life can be. Whilst I still cannot condone ending one’s life, I certainly have a huge respect for those who chose to continue living out each day of pain, and then doing it with a smile! Respect!!
3. Time has become incredibly important for me. Weird considering that I do not wear a watch. I cannot believe how I have hungered for the end of each four hour interval of my day so that I can get my next pain relief fix. At first, the pain medication lasted about an hour, and then the next three hours were spent chewing on ice and dunking my head in the ice machine. At long last, pain medication is now lasting longer than four hours at a time. However, I now have an inkling of how a drug user must feel; how life revolves around that next high. My next high is really just a semblance of normality. For a druggie; I guess the high become their semblance of normality too. How difficult it must be for an addicted person to give up their fix. I won’t have to work too hard to rid myself of these drugs once my tooth issue is resolved. I can think of nothing worse than getting rid of the drugs that give me the grasp on reality that I crave.
4. Life goes on whether you want to be in it or not.
5. I have realised how blessed we are to have life within us. Our very health, the thing we most take for granted, is so fragile, and yet an incredible gift. We should never ever forget this!
6. Two years ago, I set myself a number of tough life goals. One of them was to run 2 half marathons in less than 100 minutes each. I have snagged an invite to the Knysna half marathon on Saturday, my big chance to tick off half a goal and prove myself. This episode has left me with a clear understanding that life has more to offer than the goals I set it. That perhaps the real value of life is in living out each moment, and not meeting the arbitrary measurements that I have set to it. If I run on Saturday or not, I will need to take it as it comes. If I do run, I need to enjoy the race as opposed to my challenge. If I meet my challenge at the same time, well then it was a bonus that was meant to be!
My life over the last 5 days has been a haze of pain and drugs. A problem tooth in my mouth has reacted rather strongly to the concept of me being on holiday. To the extent that my gums, my top jaw, my lip, my nose, and cheeks have swollen! My top lip got so big at one point that its inside had rolled outside. It even got sunburnt, which is not surprising considering that it has never seen the sun except for the reflections off my teeth!
Right now I feel as if I have the worst head cold ever, have gotten terribly sunburnt on my face, and have been hit in the face with a baseball bat. That’s probably an under exaggeration! I feel much worse than that!
I am very lucky that I do not feel pain...
But this I can feel...
It has however given me time to pause and I am a little surprised at some of the gems of insight that have come to the fore. So instead of writing about my holiday woes, I will beguile you will some of my new hallucinated pearls of wisdom!
1. I have not been able to smile in days. As a result, I have this feeling that I am unhappy. Truth be told, I am rather unhappy. The thing is that smiling often makes a bad situation better somehow, whether it be the hormones released by one’s body or the purely psychological reaction of one’s mind to smiling. I miss smiling; it certainly helps make bad things bearable!
2. Intense pain saps ones inner resources. It must take a super human effort for any cancer, or any other painful disease sufferer to get up every day and work through debilitating pain. This has to be especially difficult when there is no end in sight. For the first time in my life, I have considered how difficult it is to wake every morning, if one slept at all, and face another day of painful life. I have never understood how anyone could chose to die rather than live out the gift of their life. Now I have an inkling of how terrible this kind of life can be. Whilst I still cannot condone ending one’s life, I certainly have a huge respect for those who chose to continue living out each day of pain, and then doing it with a smile! Respect!!
3. Time has become incredibly important for me. Weird considering that I do not wear a watch. I cannot believe how I have hungered for the end of each four hour interval of my day so that I can get my next pain relief fix. At first, the pain medication lasted about an hour, and then the next three hours were spent chewing on ice and dunking my head in the ice machine. At long last, pain medication is now lasting longer than four hours at a time. However, I now have an inkling of how a drug user must feel; how life revolves around that next high. My next high is really just a semblance of normality. For a druggie; I guess the high become their semblance of normality too. How difficult it must be for an addicted person to give up their fix. I won’t have to work too hard to rid myself of these drugs once my tooth issue is resolved. I can think of nothing worse than getting rid of the drugs that give me the grasp on reality that I crave.
4. Life goes on whether you want to be in it or not.
5. I have realised how blessed we are to have life within us. Our very health, the thing we most take for granted, is so fragile, and yet an incredible gift. We should never ever forget this!
6. Two years ago, I set myself a number of tough life goals. One of them was to run 2 half marathons in less than 100 minutes each. I have snagged an invite to the Knysna half marathon on Saturday, my big chance to tick off half a goal and prove myself. This episode has left me with a clear understanding that life has more to offer than the goals I set it. That perhaps the real value of life is in living out each moment, and not meeting the arbitrary measurements that I have set to it. If I run on Saturday or not, I will need to take it as it comes. If I do run, I need to enjoy the race as opposed to my challenge. If I meet my challenge at the same time, well then it was a bonus that was meant to be!
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