A Tale of Two Root Canals

As preamble, my first experience with a dentist was at a health clinic. I was maybe 7 or 8. The dentist, who meant well, decided to give me some fillings. Though he numbed me up, I still felt incredible pain. When I told him that I was in pain, he assumed that I was a scared kid and that I was making it up. After that, I wanted nothing to do with dentists. It turns out that part of my incredible physiology that generally keeps me in good health also makes me incredibly hard to dope up. Had the dentist simply listened to me, he would have discovered this for himself.

Jump ahead about eight years. I was 16 and I was in love. After months of daydreaming, I finally decided to do something about it. On Sunday, during church, I wrote a long letter to the object of my affection telling her how I felt. That night, as I contemplated giving her the letter the next day at school, I bit into a popcorn kernel and my mouth exploded in pain.

Two days later, I had to leave school early for my first dentist appointment with Dr. Paine at UCSF - a dental school. Just before I left for the appointment, I cornered the love of my life and handed her the letter. I told her to open it later, then I walked to UCSF. During the entire walk, I anticipated her reading the letter and all of her possible reactions. As I waited in the waiting room, I imagined her pleasure at reading my letter, or the pain of being rejected. As they took x-rays and told me I needed a root canal, my mind was fully focused on my impending new girlfriend and all the wonderful things life had in store for us. As they numbed me up... and numbed me up... and continued numbing me until you could have given me a jaw transplant without my realizing it, I prepared my conversation with the girl the next day and started figuring out what to get her for Valentines Day which was less than a week away. They drilled, poked, prodded, and did all sorts of painful things in my mouth - but I could have cared less. I didn't even realize that four hours had passed when they finally told me I was done and sent me on my way.

To make a long story short, she said yes and six wonderful years of love followed that.

Jump ahead to just a couple of weeks ago. I was eating salad (popcorn... salad... clearly its the healthy things that cause us so much pain ;) when, once again, fireworks. This time I went to Dr. Karo at Sears Dental clinic in Tanforan. (She's pretty awesome... while doing dental work she's talking about Alicia Keys with her dental assistant. Nice, easy going, and numbed me up good ;) Now, as I'm getting poked and prodded and rooted, my mind is elsewhere once again. This time, I'm in Kenya - although, more specifically, my mind is wandering down dark paths. I'm worried about the trip. I'm worried about the airline. I'm worried about all the hundreds of things that can go wrong.

And then, she starts in with the drill. My mind instantly reverts to that 8 year old mindset. I cling to the chair like its a life preserver. I brace for the impact of mindnumbing pain. It never arrives. And I'm left scrunched up on the dental chair like I was a victim of electro-shock therapy and nothing happened. As the relief of being pain free washed over me, I suddenly had a loud and clear thought, "Compared to this, what can possibly go wrong in Kenya?"

I started laughing. How silly of me? Real life is so often nothing like the horrors that we imagine, but also nothing like the triumphs we hope for. Still, its far better in life to imagine the good things than the bad, to hope for positive outcomes than to anticipate negative ones.

I'd been avoiding dentists because of hard earned pain avoidance fears. In the end, the pain had come and it had probably been much worse than it would have been had I been taking it in smaller doses all along. The first time I'd encountered this pain, I hardly noticed because I was to in love to care. The second time I encountered this pain, I realized that the real pain in my mouth was far worse than the imagined pain of a million possible outcomes. Instead of bracing myself for inevitable pain, I should embrace the future for all its possible joys.

My anxiety for the trip has subsided as fast as the pain from dental surgery (yet another advantage to my physiology is that I very rarely suffer from lingering pain - I just heal too darn fast). In less than two weeks I'll be boarding that flight with my eyes open and my heart ready to embrace all the wonderfulness of God's world.

Now I only have to figure out how to smuggle a baby lion back to San Francisco in my luggage. ;)