Rooted in a Canal
The pendulum swings. Not long ago I was in sunny California — taking in the ocean, deeply beautiful moments and feeling fabulous. Read more, California, Join Us. This week I’m getting a root canal.
HOW HARD CAN IT BE?
I sit in the endodontics office filling out the paper work. I feel a shaky sense of maybe I should just get-up-and-leave kind of feeling wash over me. Then I hear my self say, “how hard can this be? It can’t hurt that bad as long as the anesthetic works.”
Not enough time to think about it anymore I hear, “Elizabeth Irvine, please come with me.” I follow and notice how I nervously start to chat about the cool art hanging in the office, and to me how each painting seems to represent teeth. She looked at me a little strangely without a reply.
TOOTH #11
Seated in the big chair the doctor arrives with my x-ray in hand and shows me a huge hole in my gum above tooth #11, he says which has probably been there for a long time, most likely from an injury. All I can recall is as a teenager I fell off my horse on a regular basis.
He explains that I need a root canal and how this takes place. I agree, please fix it. Within less than a minute he swiftly injects my gum with a numbing serum and I realize the upper left side of my mouth has no sensation.
this color was actually color of the year, popular as lipstick too.
I then feel my attention being drawn to the lips of his sweet young assistant, they have the most beautiful shade of lipstick, a deep coral pink, probably called something like persimmon or caqui de frutas. Thank goodness for her lips, they held my attention on something beautiful.
Then as he fires up the drill to bore a hole through my tooth, I ask, “any chance I can hold your assistant’s hand?” He and she consent and she offers her gentle young hand out to mine. I place my hand in hers and hold on tightly. We never met before this moment but the feeling of her unknown hand in mine gives me a connection to something that feels like a surge of warmth and kindness.
He starts to drill, honed with years of expertise and skill to get the job done — he is quick and efficient. He goes on to explain in the very near future, his assistant will need her hand back so she can use both of them to assist the procedure.
LETTING GO
I hate to think I am going to have to let go, but at this stage he is done with the high- pitched drilling. He is ready to move on to scraping out my tooth’s dead root. The scary sound is now gone, I can’t feel a thing, and so I start to relax into the whole process a little more. I loosen my grip and eventually let go and let her hand release out of mine
FINDING WHOLENESS THROUGH BALANCE
Each day, week, month, year all add up to the ebbs and flows of our life. Pendulums are used to regulate the movement of clocks because the interval of time for each complete oscillation, called the period, is constant. My belief is the sense of a pendulum swing in our life, is what keeps us whole.
GRATITUDE
I am grateful for sunny vacations and for endodontic doctors who can fix teeth problems and I am grateful for the gentle warmth of a compassionate young hand.