Well, THAT was funny.

by Mrs. Smith on February 2, 2018

It was a while ago now, and I apologize for taking so long to get around to reporting. I really miss writing here. Deeply miss it. Hopefully the writing juju fairy comes back in the near future. We’ll see.

At any rate, after that Chatting with God post, I feel like you deserve the follow-up.

The worst part of the whole Root Canal Day (by far) was when I burned my tongue quite badly on my herbal-painkiller-tea. Oops. It totally hurt for like 5 days afterwards. Only now (10-days-later) is it feeling back to normal normal.
Yowzers.

So how’s that for irony:

Drinks painkiller-tea. Burns tongue. It’s painful. Bwahaha.

One of the other funny parts of that day was how the endodontist and his assistant both commented a couple times about how calm I was.

I literally giggle now, thinking about that part!
Calm! Me! Bwahahahahahaaaa… Totally divine intervention.

Eventually, I told the dental assistant about my little “adventure” 4 days before.

No fair, her continuing to think I was just chill about this whole thing. She’s all chatty about how some people really freak out, I’m sitting there smiling… aaaaaand… Yeah, no way could I let her think I was in any way different than the folks who end up in tears at the prospect of a root canal. 

The adventure.

When messaging Mr Smith the week before Root Canal Day, I cleverly made the horrific mistake of searching for a root canal GIF –because gifs are the best comic relief to ever happen to messenger, and nothing needs comic relief like dental work does.

I didn’t even have to scroll. There it was, looking up at me from the bottom of the screen:
a very NOT-FUNNY cross-section of a tooth
having a root canal, start to finish, in 10 seconds.

Right there, without any warning whatsoever. I’d seen descriptions and cross-section illustrations, but something about it being animated… Wow. It went over like a smack in the face and a punch to the gut and a train coming at me, all at once.

= panic attack

Not just “ooh, wow, she’s kinda freaking out here, better go find a happy place.” Oh no. It was more like “she’s completely lost it,” full on crying, basket case, can’t handle anything, messaging friends like crazy hoping someone can help me snap out of it, because wow. I could just NOT come down off that one.

I couldn’t even pray about it because I was so mad at God that the best the dental world has to offer is such an irreversible, barbaric, medieval practice. True story.

I couldn’t troubleshoot it because my brain was stuck in “I DON’T WANT TO NEED THIS, AHHH!!!”

“Life Goals,” in this instance, meaning: function at all

God bless my peeps who let me be a basket case and still love me.
God bless the two words that helped me pull out of the worst of it.27267296_10155431945374542_1461376737_oGod bless the peeps I’ll see in real life who won’t look at me weird for this public confession of a 6-hour-long panic attack in my recent past.
God bless the ones that look at me weird, too, cuz they need it most.

So, yeah, that was “fun.”

I’d say my usual, snarky, “fun like a root canal,” but yeah. It was “fun” like a panic attack, which isn’t the least bit fun at all. As it turns out, the root canal actually had its fun moments, so it’s been removed from my snarky comments folder altogether.

“You’re so calm.”

Ha. The miracle that is calmness only descended upon me the night before. In fact, the whole reason I cancelled my appt at their office 4 months ago (FOUR MONTHS AGO?!) after a weekend of tooth-death agony was because I wasn’t brave enough to go and be that person, sitting there crying.

I was a wimpy wimp-wimp and I fully acknowledge it. The folks who go, and who end up being in tears – they’re tougher stuff than me.

Was it worth it? Waiting until I had all my ducks in a row and could chat and laugh about it and waltz through it like it was a party instead of a trainwreck?

I have no idea. But it went the way it went and there you go. 🙂 I just needed to let my faith grow a little bit before I climbed that mountain.

 

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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Jarom Smith February 4, 2018 at 5:46 am

When you’re really ready to face your fear head-on, try skydiving! A root canal (or pretty much any other mundane life challenge) will seem tame by comparison. “If I can do this, I can do anything!”

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Mrs. Smith February 6, 2018 at 10:15 pm

Oh, I bet! I almost wanna try it just to tell you, no, the root canal was worse… but I’m sure you’re right.
Maybe. 😉

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