The Throbbing Pains of Healing…
Healing is never easy; it’s often raw, painful and messy.
I had a wisdom tooth extraction. Weeks before that, I’d chipped my tooth only God knows how. And I’d been trying to live with it for the few weeks after it happened. It wasn’t easy. It hurt a little, was a tad uncomfortable. I thought I could ignore it but no, with everyday came more damage.
Now I could barely properly chew on the right side using that molar, and the gum has become a little exposed and inflamed. Eat anything too sweet or anything that had a lot of particles that could get lodged in the tooth, and it would hurt sore.
I finally made the appointment to see a dentist to consider my options. I was thinking they’d simply fill the tooth/cavity. But no, the doctor was telling me after I did a dental x-ray, that the only plausible way forward was to extract the entire tooth.
Okay, what?!!! That’s not what I came here for!!!
I came for some potentially good news and good outcome and a minimally evasive one at that, not an entire extraction. I knew it might hurt. But I was not ready for the truckload of pain that was waiting in store for me. (Spoiler alert, as I lay back in the dentist’s chair, I was rethinking my life’s options -I wanted to bolt from that room because of the pain).
I remember going to the hospital that morning and I was in quite an impressive mood. I was literally just feeling myself and hyping myself on my WhatsApp status, with witty captions that were applause worthy.
I’m the queen of witty captions, by the way!
I got in and after waiting for awhile, it was my turn. I didn’t know what to expect, but what happened in there couldn’t have been a farther cry and ruder awakening that anything I could ever have anticipated. It was like a slap in the face towards reality: like a “wake up and smell the coffee, please.”
I somehow had imagined a fully automated procedure where they’d use some advanced instrument to easily and calmly extract the tooth with minimal pain. But no! And let me just say, before I further narrate my experience, that the doctor was a gem. She was very patient with me.
Firstly, I had an initial shot of local anesthesia, which didn’t really numb the area, so the had to administer another one, into the gum around the affected area. The needle was so long and sharp it could have as well been used to dig a well.
After I couldn’t feel half of my face because it was numb and swollen, the right side to be precise, she went in.
It felt uncomfortable. I don’t have the words to describe it. It felt like she was digging a hole in my tooth; driving down an abyss; prying open a cave. I felt the pressure on the area, and even though it wasn’t excessively painful (which she’d already briefed me that I’d feel pressure on the area as she worked on the tooth) it hurt.
45 mins of someone pressing, prying and dabbing in someone’s open mouth would be evasive enough for anyone. So, I will feel no shame for the little lady tear that for a split second uninvitedly crawled out of my eyes and down my caruncles…
I remember that when I was leaving after the procedure, the nurse was reiterating that I get the prescribed painkillers and take them immediately. I agreed, but I had to drive almost 45 minutes to the pharmacy near my house, and because of the anesthesia, I was in pain but not too much. So I waited till I got home before I took it.
People, let me tell you, if before the anesthesia was wearing off, it’d felt like someone was hitting me in the jaw with a hammer, then having it finally wear off felt like someone using a chainsaw to split open my jaw!
It was so painful I literally felt dizzy. My head was throbbing and I was completely useless. A tooth. It was incredible that one single tooth had such great impact on my body.
Healing after was hard; antibiotics, painkillers, warm salt water therapy, not being able to chew properly, and most of all, the throbbing pain.
THE THROBBING PAIN WAS THE WORST!
I cannot adequately describe the throbbing pain to you. The right side of my face felt like it had a heartbeat and I could feel the palpitations of someone who’s face had been kissed by a train.
I was in pain usually from the early mornings to mid mornings, after which I would finally taste some soothing relief, then late afternoon to night time, the pain would resurface like a sleeping lion who was suddenly awake and riled up.
It went on for almost a week, I was beginning to be worried. I was almost through with my medications, I had read a lot on google, and contacted a Dr from the hospital -he wasn’t the one who did the procedure, but he was kind to me the first day I went there, and indulged me whenever I had a question. S/o to Dr Fafa at 37 Hospital. Because let me be honest, I really do not trust public hospitals, and I often feel that the care isn’t the best because they are always overburdened with high patient to doctor ratios and lack of facilities/infrastructure. But Fafa was a gem.
Anyway, it throbbed and throbbed and I wasn’t able to heal fast enough because I kept talking more that I should’ve (I had so many work meetings and 90% of those meetings were also virtual, so I took them from home. I was playing a lead role in several of them — I tried to delegate as much as I could. ). I was also worried because I had a very important work trip coming up and I needed to be painless by then. I didn’t want to travel sick.
Then one day, one fine Thursday, I went through an entire day without painkillers, no riled up throbbing pain from late afternoon to into the night. The throbbing pain ceased.
As I pushed my tongue to the back of my mouth, I realized that that open, very gaping wound which marked the hole where the tooth had been extracted, had finally closed up. The throbbing pain of healing. It’d hurt because it was healing. My gum was literally sewing itself back together, all on it’s own; closing up the wounded flesh, fighting for its reconstruction. And that couldn’t have come easily.
So, yes, healing often hurts, but we must allow it. We must allow the pain to do it’s work and then let it leave in it’s time. Pain is only a symptom; a demonstration of a deeper underworking. And very often, if we focus on the pain, we lose out on the wholesomeness of healing. I told you, as that doctor was cruising with her tools in my mouth, I was re-evaluating my life’s decisions -contemplating on if I’d have still wanted to extract the tooth if I’d known it’d hurt this much. But the pain was necessary, and I am now pain-free.
Sometimes, we go through circumstances in our lives that leave us in pain; all we can feel is deep agony and throbbing pain, and sometimes the pain isn’t even physical — it’s internal, psychological, emotional — etched deep beyond the pores of our skin.
It hurts terribly, and we cannot for the life of us, understand why it happened- we cannot quantify the amount of healing that is required to make us whole again; and it feels like it would never end.
But today I’d like to assure you, that if you stay faithful to admitting the pain, and letting God and time do their healing work, you’ll wake up one day and be pain-free. Perhaps you might have scars; scars that show what you’ve been through -but scars are symbols of surviving. You went through something difficult, braced up and survived it. Pain has a place — and that may seem like a broken record to someone, but just consider; this writing wasn’t birthed out of a sweet spot or a sweet experience, but it just might encourage someone going through a rough patch, whatever that may be.
Whenever you go through a hard time, or a painful situation, I want you to someway somehow think about the throbbing pains of healing. Your healing. Your soon better coming day.
You are hurting, but you are also healing, my dearest darling…
#robbiewrites #radiantrobbie 11.5.22
