Pain and Healing
April 24th, 2008Last Wednesday as I was getting ready for work, I noticed my cell phone’s red light was blinking indicating I had a message. When I opened up my phone it said I had 3 messages, not a good sign.
It was my son. When I called him back he sounded terrible. Worse than terrible really. There’s something about being a parent that enables you to detect the most subtle of differences in your child’s voice. This morning there was nothing subtle about it, he was in deep, deep pain.
He woke up at 4 a.m. with a terrible tooth ache. He said the pain was so extreme he thought he would pass out. Wished that he would pass out.
I called around to several local dentist to see if we could get in this morning. One half-page ad said “Emergencies seen promptly.” The receptionist must not have read that part as she dryly said there was no room at the inn. Move over Gandhi. The Dalai Lama could learn something from this gal’s compassion.
I’m sure there’s a morning after a night of drinking that I never saw. A morning of pain for my not-so-little boy that I missed out on, but there was nothing in my experience with him that was filled with so much pain as that morning. There was nothing I could do to help him but give him Tylenol, call a dentist and be there for him. It didn’t seem like enough. I don’t know how parents with really, seriously ill children cope.
I finally found a dentist who would see him right away. After 5 minutes of paper work we heard the usually ominous, “The doctor will see you now.” This time it sounded more like “Welcome home, son. We’ve missed you!”
Turns out it was impacted wisdom teeth. The dentist sent him home with a referral to an oral surgeon and a prescription for an antibiotic that may or may not work on the pain. There must have been a local epidemic of teeth running amok as the surgeon had no opening until the following Monday - 5 long, pain-filled days away. I called later that day and asked to be moved up if they had any cancellations.
“How about Friday at 1:30?” Yes, that will work fine. Thank you ma’m, thank you very much. Relief was in sight for about 30 seconds until she told me this was for the ‘consult’ only in which they would determine what the problem was, what kind of surgery would be necessary and what kind of schedule of payments could be made. The earliest they could schedule the surgery would be next Tuesday.
What the hell did people do a hundred years ago? Suffer.
Fortunately they squeezed him in Monday morning at 7:30. All weekend long he moped around the house waiting for the next four hours to go by so he could pop another Vicodin. Occasionally I would hear him arguing over the phone with his girlfriend. She’d already had her wisdom teeth out and took great delight in going into gory detail about what lay before him. So now he was in pain and full of anxiety. I doubt he slept 4 hours a night.
Yesterday morning by 9 a.m. the deed was done. They called me back into a freezing offertory to shake my hand, point to the teeth on an xray and say, “He did great. It was nice to meet you. Pull your car up to the rear door and we’ll bring him out.” It reminded me of a NASCAR pit stop. Everyone has a job to do and there’s a guy standing by with a stop watch to make sure they’re doing it fast enough. Nice enough but a little too assembly line for my taste.
Black dogs can be a lot like wisdom teeth. 4 a.m. or high noon, you never know when they’ll bite you. A year or so back I told a good friend of mine about my dog and his response was no response. He must have not known what to say, so he was quiet.
A few months later he told me his wife had been having a hard time with the stress in her life. They’d had trouble with their elderly parents and several trips to the hospital. More than once they would spend hours at the hospital only to finally leave and upon driving out of the parking lot, they would see another family member being driven in. It was finally just too much for his wife and she found herself slipping a leash on to a black dog of her own.
A doctor put her on an anti-depressant which had the unfortunate side effect of suicidal ideation. She ended up in the hospital getting off that med and on to others to stabilize her.
My friend has been through a lot in his life including a battle with cancer, which he won. He didn’t know about depression then but he sure does now. He still doesn’t understand it but that hasn’t stopped him from being incredibly caring and patient with his wife. He told me that one time when his father-in-law was in the hospital his wife couldn’t bear to see him in such distress, so they sat in another room where she cried for a long, long time. What did he do? He sat with her the entire time.
You don’t have to understand everything in order to do the right thing. Like my father said, “It’s easy, you just do it.”
April 24th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Ah, wouldn’t it be nice if our black dog could be removed like our wisdom teeth. Some pain, some drugs, then plenty of rest and ice cream. Anyway, that’s how I remember getting my wisdom teeth out. But it seems my black dog is here to stay, always gnawing on me.
It also seems that I have inherited the family dog. My father and his cousin both suffered from depression and took their own lives. This was concealed from me when I was growing up (I finally found out when I was 30), but my mother often used to say “You’re just like your father” and wring her hands over me in despair.
Cosmo, I wonder if you have a family dog, too, and your daughter feels its presence and its teeth…?
April 24th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Yes Faith, I would gladly trade a week of pain for this black dog.
My brothers made sure I heard all the horror stories yet my surgery went really well, much to their chagrin! They weren’t impacted, so it was a half hour total and I was on my way home to be spoiled by mom.
So sorry about your father and his cousin. That is so very sad. The loss of a parent is always difficult under the best of circumstances. I can only imagine how you felt when you were told and then to think back how she said “You’re just like your father.”
It sounds like your mom was probably trying to protect you although even today families feel ashamed or embarrassed by what they see as the persistent stigma of mental health issues.
When my son was first living with me, he was very angry at his mom and was really acting out. I had him tested for learning disabilities to rule out other reasons for his bad grades & behavior. In the process his mom revealed a lot of mental health issues on her side of the family.
They were serious enough that she should have told me before we were married or had children. So a black dog is not out of the question. My daughter has definitely exhibited depressed behavior. The thought breaks my heart. Unfortunately her mom doesn’t believe in it even though it’s in her family. How crazy is that?
I’ve wondered about the genetic component in my case but feel it maybe more a mix of predisposition to melancholy and situational - with an emphasis on the later. I have definitely taken the losses in my life hard, but who knows - my family doesn’t like talking about it either.
Mom was on anti-depressants the last several years of her life and she definitely showed signs but she had other health issues that may have contributed too. I think the elderly are often given anti-depressants almost as though the doctors think “They’re old. They must be depressed!”