The Breaking Point

Apparently, I have a thing for writing a blog on Wednesday and then continuing with the same subject on Friday, because here I go again.

Back to the dentist thing. You know what I realized? 99% of the time, I detest going to the dentist. I mean, yeah, I get my teeth cleaned regularly, and if I need other work, I get it done because—well, that’s just what you do if you want to keep your teeth.

But last week, I was willing to do anything to get into a dentist’s chair, positively begging to have them stick that needle in my gums and get me good and numb. Because suddenly I needed that guy. Bad. And when you have a need like that, you find yourself looking at life from a different perspective. You do and think things you wouldn’t normally do and think.

Thus, I scratched off everything else on my schedule in order to devote my week to dental consultations and treatments, and then recovery. And you guys, I’m usually a pretty frugal person, so it pains me to admit that I didn’t care how much that specialist wanted to charge. (Later, I’d have probably been ticked if it were worse than it actually was, but not that particular day.) More like, “Do you take Visa?”

Such an aberration for me. And the difference is, of course, pain.

So. Now we know I’m a wimp (ahem, quit laughing). I’ve discovered my limit, the threshold at which I crack. Everyone has one, including and especially fictional characters. And we don’t always know where that threshold lies until we cross it.

But I did learn from the experience. I won’t share here because it would be a boring info dump, so just trust me. I learned stuff.

Where is your threshold? And once you reach that limit, what would you be willing to do to back up, cross over, or just stop the madness altogether? If you’re a writer, do you know your main character’s breaking point? And more importantly, even as you’re throwing rocks at them, what will you do to save them from demise? Will you? Can you? Should you?

Different than I Expected

*Contrary to how the first paragraph may appear, this is not going to be a post of complaint, I promise.

Last week, I had the toothache from hell. No, really. Like, fire and brimstone heat I could feel beating like a heartbeat in one tiny spot in my mouth, and up into my head. So I went to my dentist, because I just knew he could fix this awful pain.

I mean, he’s my dentist. Teeth are his thing. And we go to him because he’s good. But within minutes of relaxing back into the chair (practically begging him to do a root canal or whatever), he shook his head, “I’m going to refer you to an endodontist who is better qualified to treat this problem.”

Wait. What? Back up the truck. You’re sending me where? And more importantly, it means I have to make it through another night of pain? Okay, so in his defense, he gave me some meds and an antibiotic, and encouraged me to tell the staff at the other office how bad it hurt so they’d rush me in. But still. I wasn’t feeling so happy just then.

That night, I actually dreamed I DIED of an infected tooth.

Two appointments (and days) later, I dragged my shaky self to the specialists office, where I was shocked and amazed. They lay me back in the cushiest dentist’s chair ever, with butter-soft leather and a neck pillow at just the right height, and offered me an iPod with sound eliminating headphones, numbed me up, and then…

I took a sort-of nap (a real one, not the drug-induced kind). Then I was done.

That was it? All it took to fix something that had felt like such a huge, daunting problem? A freaking nap? (Well, and lots of money, but we won’t go there.)

And yes, it’s fixed. I was told that I could expect to be pretty sore for the next two weeks, that my pain might get worse before it gets better and blah blah blah. Truth: it’s better. So. Much. Better. Still a little sore, but not as bad as I expected.

Because even though my dentist is good, he knew I needed to see someone else for that one particular problem, and he wanted me to have the best care possible.

How often do we do that in life? We do something expecting it to turn out one way, but then it doesn’t. We complain and moan, and whine a bit, and then are shocked and amazed when we discover that we are now much better off than we would’ve been had things happened our way in the first place. Yep. That’s me this week.

And I can’t tell you how glad I am. Is it just me, or does stuff like this happen to you often too?