My dentist’s office called after a routine cleaning and X-ray. Could I, they wondered, come back? Tomorrow. I got the sense that if I said, “I can rush over right now,” they’d reply. “Good, hurry.” It was a matter of tone.
The news was bad. An enormous cavity, growing hidden beside my upper right wisdom tooth. Maybe even invading the jaw bone. Requiring a root canal and crown. I’d probably lose the wisdom tooth too.
“I like how you’re so grim,” I told the dentist, after he explained the situation. “It shows you care.”
Two hours in the chair for the root canal. Honestly, it didn’t hurt — well, my left arm did, quite a lot, fallout from my ripped-up left shoulder. Holding still for so long. I’d occasionally extend my arm, taking care not to upset a tray of tools.
Then there was the enforced silence. Although, being me, I still tried to speak, with a dental dam plus dental instruments in my mouth. I wanted to tell the dentist how important Chicago is to the history of fluoridation. The initial experiments were held in Evanston in 1946, with Oak Park as the control. Being a dentist, he’d be interested.
Shutting up is an art form I struggle to master.
But that isn’t the most embarrassing part.
The root canal was the first act. The second was the endodontist, who created a crown to go over the afflicted tooth, shaved down to a stump.
More than three hours in that chair, including the wait while the crown was sculpted by a high-tech medical printer. When I could speak again, this is what I said:
“You know what I was thinking for the past two hours? And this will sound like I’m blowing smoke… but I was thinking about how lucky I am to have access to high quality medical care like this.”
I actually said that. And I meant it. Some 100 million Americans don’t routinely see a dentist, usually because of the cost. Half the world’s population suffers from untreated oral diseases, according to the World Health Organization.
A reminder. You know what’s much worse than having a root canal? Needing one and not getting it.
Honestly, the root canal/crown was plenty to hone my medical gratitude. But life has a way of laying it on. A couple weeks later, I went to get an MRI on the shoulder that has hurt me since I tripped and fell on a train platform in Portugal. I was hoping the doctor would say it was merely strained, perhaps prescribe the shoulder be massaged with warm healing oils while listening to whale song.
Torn rotator cuff. Which I could ignore, going to physical therapy, building up the muscles around the detached, nearly useless muscle.
Or I could have it repaired by arthroscopic surgery. Cut a few holes in my arm, poke in a camera, set some anchors in the bone, sew the muscle back in place, out in an hour. Not even a night’s stay in the hospital.
However. And this is a big honking however. I have to wear my left arm in a sling, 24 hours a day. For six weeks. Lift a coffee cup, scratch my ear, and I could rip out all the surgeon’s careful handiwork. The surgeon suggested I do a few months of physical therapy and see where we stood.
I surprised myself by saying, “Nah, why wait? Let’s do the surgery now.”
Why? First, if I’m going to go through months of rehab, why not train a good-as-new rebuilt shoulder instead of the fraying old bum one?
Here my mother helped, quite the feat, since she’s been dead for over a year. But she had a foot that was twisting, and also needed complex orthopedic surgery. She refused, for all the reasons I was tempted to say no — painful, long recovery, outcome uncertain, can blunder forward with it as it is. Eventually she could barely walk, hobbling around the Whole Foods, depending on shopping carts as walkers and the kindness of strangers. Lack of mobility eventually helped kill her.
My takeaway is: don’t neglect problems. Fix them. “God grant me the courage… to change the things I can.” Not necessarily for now. But for 10 years from now, when I might be glad that all the muscles in my shoulder work together as a team.
Which is a long way of saying, this is my last column for at least three weeks. Maybe more. I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch, though my colleagues will keep you informed and entertained. And rest assured, as much as you’ll miss me, I’ll miss you more, and get back as soon as I can.