Pain is a four letter word

I never was one of those guys who felt it was important to run through coals of fire, or dive off a cliff, although given the state of mind, I might be given to either event.

I recently had a root canal done on my upper right and an extraction of a cracked tooth on my lower right.

Now just getting to this point of dealing with everything else except myself I cannot express the nights of pain that apexed in the night when my tooth cracked, oh the pain was so bad, like a terrible fever. The cut of my tooth, scraping against my tounge actually affected my speech. That was just an appetizer.

I took time to fix some things, one of those things was scheduling a dentist appointment, last time I had seen a dentist, was when my marilyn bridge had failed and needed to be repaired. I knew I was shooting in the dark, and so I just chose.

The Dentist was young, but had a steady hand and was straight with me. He told me it was going to be painful, he told me he would do the best he could. The root canal was no picnic, but comparitively the less physical of the two procedures. If you've ever pulled a nail out of a wall, you know what a tooth extraction is like. Many times, the tooth cracks, and then it can be nasty, mine had been cracked for months, he cracked it on his first attempt, and got it out on the second. He left for a minute where the office manager came over.

"Now Jason, there is a plaster we put on for most patients, it helps the healing process and shortens the time, it is also not covered by insurance. Do you want to pay?"

Can I explain the concept of bedside manner? I am drugged, in traumatic recovery and ready to snap. I wimper out, "how much"

"Two Hundred dollars" Ok, I don't have that and I had been entertaining the idea of getting dental implants, so I said, no; and that I could handle the longer wait time if it meant I didn't have to get something pry-ed off later.

Well apparently they also inject bone so the wound heals around it, that was important when I realized I wasn't sleeping at night anymore. Imagine waking up because someone is squeezing your jaw and the only escape is to push on your own jaw, at first I didn't put it all together. I thought the dairy I was taking in was helping me, when later I found up, simply being upright was enough. Did you know that if you shake your feet, like if you are having convulsions, that (I think) you are drawing blood away from your pain points, and the medication kicks in. I don't know, and I'm sure I won't care when I can sleep through the night.