I have a toothache.
This is no ordinary toothache. My lower-right wisdom tooth is wreaking all sorts of havoc on the right side of my head. For one, it, being in the back, has received much less attention from the ol' toothbrush than my other teeth. As a result, it has developed a fairly severe cavity. I'm fairly certain that if the thin facade of a tooth surface were filed away, one might find a note reading "IOU One Tooth Innards. Yours, Oreo cookies" and not much else. (See, I have this thing about eating Oreos before bed. It occasionally late at night and I forget to brush my teeth afterwards. While it doesn't entirely account for the decrepit state of my tooth, it's sort of a metaphor for the whole process.)
Beyond the cavity, however, the wisdom tooth is quite large and quite insistent on having its space, to the detriment of the rest of my teeth and my lower jaw. As it muscles its way into my mouth, it continues to crowd my other teeth and butt itself against the bend in my lower jaw. While the cavity affects my ability to use that right side for even moderately cold foods, the overcrowding causes my ear to explode with pain, as if I had an ear infection. It causes my neck to strain and become sore. My jaw clicks and locks with every opening and closing, as my muscles are so tense with the constant pain. I'm taking 600mg of ibuprofen every 4 hours (about 1.5 to 3x the normal dosage) - sometimes it touches the pain, sometimes it doesn't.
Boo hoo Peter, right? No, I urge you not to cry for me, gentle readers. The thing is that I've had this tooth thing going on for a while now. Every couple or four months, I go through this excruciating pain for a week or ten days, only to have it disappear as suddenly as it appears. Every time I swear I will take care of it, that no pain like this should go untreated. At the same time, I am TERRIFIED of the dentist, and this is likely one of the more terrifying procedures. So somehow, over the past couple of years that this has been happening, I haven't gotten this taken care of.
What a metaphor for life's decisions! So often I put off the difficult decisions, choosing the long-term (but infrequent) pain over the short-term pain of just making a decision and sticking with it. If I had bitten the bullet and taken care of this problematic tooth when it first started hurting, I would not be in pain right now. How many tough decisions do I avoid, knowing that the pain will be here only for a while before leaving long enough for me to forget the pain all over again? How long did I struggle unnecessarily with my addiction, preferring the relatively infrequent pain and embarrassment of succumbing over the unknown, exquisite, yet brief pain of resolving to kick my addiction?
To put off these types of decision only pushes out the healing time. My jaw, teeth, and gums cannot heal from the oral surgery I require until I actually choose to have the surgery! Neither can my heart heal from my own failings until I admit them and allow God to perform the heart surgery I require.
I'm calling the dentist in the morning. It's time to get this pain over now and over forever.
Posted by pcg at March 21, 2005 12:26 AM