My Finely Tuned Race Car Needed Dental Work

It’s early and I couldn’t sleep but I also don’t want to start the day.  It’s been a hard week, for what seems like a small thing.  He had dental work three days ago.

I joke that he’s like a finely tuned race car – doesn’t take much to throw everything out of whack.

It started with a broken tooth. No pain, but obviously problematic. The choice was a root canal and a crown, or pulling it and adding a replacement to his existing partial plate which fit well and gave him no problems. He opted for the latter, a relatively simple procedure.

Two appointments for Tuesday were scheduled. He took an anxiety pill in the morning. That appointment didn’t require novocaine. The afternoon appointment did. All went well – at least for his teeth.

But the day seemed to throw his balance off and make him weak. He didn’t have much of a toothache but instead said his whole body felt beat up. He’s been tired and achy ever since.  Which means he doesn’t really want to exercise.

Eating, already a challenge, has been far more difficult with a swollen lip. He’s had problems to get the food all the way into his mouth so it gets stuck between his lips. Obviously that’s worse with the dental work.

He’s depressed, too. Not smiling much. Hardly talking. I realize his smile is what keeps me going.

So is this just the dentistry and it will pass? Or is it a new level of symptoms that will just have to be gotten use to? That’s really the problem – which is it?  That’s always the question.

I spend so much time wondering about the cause of each new symptom and trying to figure out if some tiny change is the culprit and if I change that change, can we improve things. It’s an exhausting round of thinking.

All our lives when something goes wrong, you figure out how to make it better, or wait it out until it gets better on its own. Got a cold? Wait a week. Got a fever? Take an aspirin.  Infection?  Antibiotics will make it better.

There is no better in this scenario! There is only the same or worse. That’s what is so damn hard! So hard!  Each transition to a new plateau upsets the finely tuned balance.

Time to start this day.  It will probably be fine once we get going.