Pain -- a diary

Day 0: Shock
The doctor is late, he was summoned to treat an emergency on the fifth floor, a nameless patient has gone into diabetic comma. I thus have unexpectedly ample time to inspect the torture devices lying neatly in front of me. I made every effort to avoid this opportunity, coming in to floor two, oral surgery, three minutes late to my 6pm appointment. As I enter the door, I feel like I’m in a religious space. Five hundred years have passed, but the power of the steal blade has not waned at all. It’s the same inquisition, the same instruments, only the religion has changed. Preventive medicine takes the place of devoted Christianity. The zeal is similar, only the cause is different. In its original version bodily harms was a fight for one’s soul. Now it’s a fight for the body itself. The prophets wearing white lab-coats will take every measure to keep that body ‘healthy’. In both cases there is only one way to worship, the institutional way, and it involves complete surrender of individuality and agency. You’re either with us or against us. You will cooperate. Oh, you will cooperate. As my doctor is delayed, trying to balance the sugar circulation of that misfortunate patient out my sight, my own sugar level drops and I feel nauseous as the idle assistant aligns one sharp tool after another in front of me. I wet my lips with my tongue just as the assistant rests a sparkling clean scalpel the size of a banana on the tool cart, and seeing my nervousness he tells a joke:
“The silverware is ready. So what would it be sir? Fillet Minion or Rib-Eye, tonight?”
“I’m veggie, I should be lucky to have soup”, I reply, trying to be friendly, but really I have no sense of humor right now. I’m glad I skipped lunch. I would have vomited otherwise.
Finally the doctor is back. The diabetic is stable. It’s time to cut me up. We examine the panoramic x-rays together, as we did three times before. You don’t need to have clinical experience to see that my wisdom teeth are completely crooked, and this is why I’m here. The upper tooth, number 18, is just miles off from where it should be, like a ship that lost its anchor and was swayed away with the tide. The bottom tooth, number 17, is growing in a 90 degrees angle to the rest of the force. These are time bombs, waiting to explode, renegade political cells in a banana republic that might spark a revolution whose cost is unfathomable. I’ve known of these rebels’ existence since I was 18. They were discovered in a mandatory screening in the army (they wouldn’t tell you, but they take those panoramic photos of your mouth not for preventive care but, rather, for identification if your body is severed in battle beyond recognition, and only your jaw remains to attest of who you once were). I have offered these lesser teeth a safe harbor for fifteen years now; it’s time that they concede to the party line.
We go over the plan, the doctor detailing the procedure like a military operation. I’m already under the influence of very strong local anesthesia, but I remember talk about incisions and lifting and knots. I sign the waiver, confirming that I understand that 10% of the people loose some nerves in this type of procedure, and come out of it with constant numbness in their cheeks. I lean back and try to relax. There is too much information for me to chew on right now and soon enough two teeth less to chew with.
My mouth is completely numb, but my mind is alert. The doctor makes a test cut, to see if the sedation is working. It does. I can feel the saltiness of blood pouring down my throat, but I can’t feel any pain. Yet.
The doctor cuts my upper gum, first vertically, then horizontally in two places. He can now see the lost tooth, he reports. It’s way up there, almost in my sinus. He tries to pull it with some pliers, but can’t get a grip. He will try to drill it out. I can feel my jaw vibrating to the rhythm of the drill. I can feel my whole skull vibrating. He still can’t get it out. He needs to call the professor, who comes readily.
“The problem is” the professor explains happily “that you didn’t cut high enough”.
“Got it” the doctor says, and in comes the scalpel again. I feel more salty blood in my throat, and the drill swinging me, again, from side to side, then lots of pressure, and finally the tooth is out.
“We finished the easy part” the surgeon reports, “God this is killing my back, I don’t have to go to the gym tonight” he tries to be funny.
My alertness starts to numb. That was the easy part? I’m near the point of fainting. But now, the tough part, the bottom tooth, No 17, is still ahead. Again the scalpel. Again the salt in my throat. I can feel every movement inside my mouth, but it doesn’t really hurt. Learning from the experience on the upper tooth, the surgeon orders another set of tools, larger than the usual ones. He uses my chest, which is covered with a sterile paper towel, as an impromptu tool tray. I feel the weight of the steal tools on my body, one of them accidentally slips towards my groins, leaving snail marks of blood on my t-shirt, I would later learn. I feel pliers and knives, and something that looks like a little hammer, or at least that what I imagine. The bottom tooth is buried deep inside the bone. The surgeon introduces a new tool, some sort of fancy disk drill. Now I can not only feel the hunt, but smell it as well. The stench of burned flesh and bone reminds me that organic matter has no chance against harpoons of iron and steal. The room is shaky, but my surgeon’s arm is stable like Ahab’s voice over the Pequod. “The tooth is in sight” he announces, he will shortly get the great white whale if it will not get him first. But it’s not so simple, the tooth won’t come out. It’s too deep. The professor is called for a second consultation. They’re considering putting me into full anesthesia, but it’s too late. They’ll break the tooth inside the bone, and take it out in parts.
“Just be careful not to break his jaw” I hear the professor caution, and he stays to watch, just in case there are complications. The numbness starts to fade away. I hear crackling noises, and more instruments are ushered from the reservoir. Sure that little hammer had its moment. I feel bits of stones in my mouth, then the bite of a crescent needle stitching my gums, trying to restore the carnage in countless seams. This was all a rehearsal. Now starts the pain.

Day 1: Loss
The first 24 hours are not too bad. The body is simply in shock. But after the shock comes pain and with it comes loss. Who ever took for granted the ability to speak or eat? When you can’t open your mouth, food can’t come in and words can’t come out. Brushing your teeth? Now that’s a joke. Smoking? What a pipe dream. Then comes the loss of weight. The body is in trauma. It seals itself off. It’s in emergency mode, a mindset of self-sufficiency. Any resources consumed will have to come from reserves kept neatly before the gates were closed. The body sucks fat from all around. I can feel my legs and hands beginning to narrow. I lose 6 pounds in 48 hours. All that excess is concentrated in my left gums. My skull is no longer round. It’s oval, or rather oblique, slanted to the left side, which is completely swollen from under the chimney of my eye down to the tendons of my neck. I look like Louis Armstrong on the 32 cent stamp, my cheeks inflated beyond belief.
Day 2: awe
Now I’m beginning to understand what bodily pain is. I’ve heard women after labor talk about it, but never experienced it myself. The pain-killers lose their effectiveness quite rapidly, the body all too soon adopting to narcotics, and the pain finding ways around it. There must be a gland somewhere in the brain that is in charge of releasing that chemical that makes us want to live. This gland must be overwhelmed now. I get up in the middle of the night, almost suffocating, my mouth full with salty saliva mixed with blood. I’ve lost my desire to live. Only pain feels my body.
I’m disappointed with myself. This is, after all such am minor cut on each gum. What if I ever really get hurt? Perhaps then the body gets into real survival mode. Perhaps masks drop from the ceiling, offering an extra dosage of élan vital to the frightened passengers, and yes, I guess you’re expected to help yourself before you help others.
Day 3: Delusion
The level of drugs in the body has reached a critical mass. I no longer keep a sleeping schedule aligned with the rhythm of the sun. Waking up at night, and sleeping in the day, or otherwise, dreams and nightmares intermix. Characters from my life and from books I read come to visit me in my sleep. The viruses, the doctors, the warriors of the Spanish civil war, a lost dog of our neighbors, the three year old kid of our city friends-- they are all so vivid, so powerful, and some of them are frightening. They spin out of control. I flip in and out of great clarity and a mode of delusion. The drugs sharpen my senses. The colors seem strong and the music loud. A person sitting on the sofa next to me creates an earthquake in the mattress. But the mind is dull, numb, not working in full swing. Numbers don’t make sense. I don’t remember which day of the week it is. Time stretches slowly, and all the burning tasks on my to-do list lose context. Updating the website. Huh. Who ever wrote this meaningless task on my notepad anyway? I’m constantly thirsty and I sit for hours holding a glass of salt-water mixed with a little honey without remembering to drink it. I can’t stay in one place, but I don’t want to move. We go out for dinner with the neighbors. I feel alright, for a while, but then lose it, and come back home shaking. I feel that my feet are narrow. I wake up at night with strong pinching pains in my shins. There must be some neural pathway connecting the legs with the brain, I figure. The body morphs in endless shapes and forms. The mind spreads through the body, and then is concentrated back where I can feel the threads permeating my mouth, cutting through the flesh, and dwindling beyond it, like excess red ribbons on a Christmas gift. I can feel everything; I can feel nothing; all depending on the cycle of drugs. I hate being weak. I hate being sick. I hate losing control. It frightens me.
Day 4: Purgatory
The pain has a cleansing effect. I reduce the dosage of drugs, and the mind starts shifting gears. I can even eat some, and start to restore my strength. A strawberry shake. No. A STRAWBERRY shake. Mixed with apples. I can feel the taste of every atom. I can make out the distinct taste of the apples. I can taste the soil they grew in. I can discern the taste of the apple’s skin, and it’s distinct. My senses are sharp, and the body is relearning. It has been cleansed from the toxins that have been piling up in it for years. It feels young and healthy, so long as I don’t move my head to rapidly.
Day 5: Discovery
12:00 midnight.
I decide to conduct an experiment (it’s non-scientific, the sample size it too small, but it’s an exercise in control, call me control freak): I’ll try to sleep without drugs.
1:30 am.
The Experiment fails.
I wake up in tears. I rolled from my back to my left side. I’ve been resting on the wrong cheek. Oh boy. The damn blood again. I’m glad I left that towel on my pillow, it now looks like a Rorschach test, in it the mind can see beautiful roses or the signs of my healing. I can close my jaws again. I even ate some earlier. I feel the garlic burning in my throat. It has a healing effect, I’ve been told. Or at least, it keeps the evil spirits away.