Reality

The glow of Christmas and New Year's and the bowl games are gone. Lois took down the outside decorations during the record-setting warmth. (What global warming? ) We went back to work in the mines and life took on a patina of dullness interrupted by my aching mouth.

Dr. Gresham is a kindly man and I would never have another dentist. His sense of humor takes out the fear of the trauma that will ensue inside my mouth. He is one dentist treating about ten patients at a time and he barks out, "Gas is 3b! I need x-rays on 2a. Come on, come on, lets's keep it moving!" Usually there are dental assistants running from cubicle to cubicle and there is an air of excitement, urgency. Today it is subdued, being the day after Christmas and the clinic is closed. Dr. G. takes emergencies like mine for which I am deeply grateful. Actually I am one of a handful of hurting patients today.

Dr. G. shook hands with me as he set upon relieving my pain, a pain which made life miserable and kept me from being myself. His usually compassionate face was tense as he peered into my mouth. He gave me three shots at the point where my jaw hinges to my skull and looked down at me after he had finished.
"If I'm a little short with you today please forgive me. Damned kidney stones are killing me."

"I understand," I said through my own fog of pain. Dr. G. left me to treat other patients while the Novocaine took effect. There were usually patients in every cubicle but not today. It was the day after Christmas and the clinic was closed. He didn't have to be here, especially when he swimming upstream against his own pain. I said a silent prayer for him.

I took a book along for distraction but found it difficult to concentrate. I went through the motions anyway as the pain ebbed. I listened to the activity in the other cubicles, short, to-the-point exchanges they were. The joy was not in Doctor's voice as it usually is. I heard him drill and that sound does not strike terror in my psyche.  I estimated that the other people were hurting worse than I was but that was of no comfort.

After 10 pages of  Moby Dick  Dr. G. reappeared. The assistant put the gas mask in place and he reassured me, "Let me know if I'm hurting you. You don't have to tough it out. That's why we have Novocaine."

Dr. G. is compassionate but a realist. "The problem is an abscess, caused by a dying nerve. I'll need to drill through your bridge and do a root canal. ."  (It turned out to be two root canals.)

I heard the drill whine and I felt the vibrations as I tried to focus on one point of light. then I thought of Euler's limit definition of the constant e. I tried to hear music that I love or think of  or things that I need to do. I looked at Dr. G.'s face and saw a mixture of pain,  concentration and determination. My concern for him was interrupted. The jolt was exquisite and it must have registered facially. He stopped drilling and held out his gloved hand to the assistant and she handed him a syringe. Three more shots to the hinge of my mouth.

More Moby Dick. My nose itched but I couldn't feel that I was scratching it.since the realm of numbness had expanded.  More torture of reading the introduction to Moby Dick. Why do I read introductions? They are usually verbose and numbing, but then that's what I needed. I read about Herman Melville's literary failures and how he turned to satire of the literary critics. and wrestled with poverty and debt. The book fell into my chest and I welcomed the warm blanket of sleep.

Four hours had elapsed since the waiting room. It was dark and I was hungry but it would be hours before I could eat. I made an appointment for three days later as the abscessed area would have to be purged of infection. In the meantime a prescription for pain and an antibiotic.

It was snowing as I trudged homeward and I thought that I am lucky to have such a caring dentist with a gentle and supportive staff. Thank you, Doctor Gresham.

D-Day, D for Doctor

Rumination is natural for me, the kind that gets hold of something in the future and thinks about it, worries about it, puts it to rest then regurgitates it to worry about it some more, adding a worst-case scenario to the cud. I ruminate when the car makes a strange noise that even my wife can't hear. I ruminate when my body makes a strange noise or I could swear the mole on my chest has changed. The price of all commodities worries me because there is no corresponding increase in income so I ruminate. The GOP wants to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it and I ruminate.

The most fertile field for rumination is the month before a routine visit to the doctor. I used to go once a year and then they changed it to twice a year, ostensibly to rake in more money, but I cooperate, else my prescriptions won't be renewed. 

I sat in my portable rocking chair at our campsite last week and gazed at the panorama. Sixty-foot pines in front of a tranquil Wisconsin lake. As I breathed in the pine-scent my mind drifted as it always does and of course it drifted to my medical appointment on August 30. It was so quiet that I could hear my heart beating, and then with the medical thought it increased from sixty to 80. I know because I took my pulse. Again and again.

For males older than sixty the exams can become invasive, starting with the doctor's request that I drop my drawers. Anything involving my sub-equatorial region makes my heart race like an Indy 500 race car.

Recurrent rumination about the appointment stifled my serenity. My birthday was during this vacation and it only made me think that my age beckons the invasive procedure into my one-way "street." I can't tell why I am this way. I only know that panic ensues when the doctor breaches the subject of my prostate gland. I want to bolt right out the door, but that would violate this medical protocol in which I am trapped.

The vacation ended and the day came, D-Day of sorts and I resolved to face this with equanimity, bearing in mind Winston Churchill, "All we have to fear is fear itself," and thus steeled I approached one of the registration cubicles at the clinic. 

The registrar was a young man and that threw me because it was unusual. When he asked "How can I help you today," my response was delayed and before I responded he looked at me quizzically and I blurted, "You can do what it is that you do." I couldn't believe I had said that as he beckoned me "please, sit down."

"I'm not finding any appointment for you today, George."

This put me even further off stride, a reprieve. I lifted my foot from the acceleration pedal of my engine and it slowed. 

The young man peered into his computer screen as a seer into a crystal ball.

"I see that you changed your appointment to September 10 on May fourth. I'll see if Dr. Gardner has any cancellations for today."

I revved my engine again.

"No. Sorry, he's booked solid."

Again my engine slowed as the young man wrote me a new appointment card. Reprieved!

Now I have to handle another vacation with a latex, I mean medical appointment looming.