A funny thing happened on my way to Making It Happen in 2012... I forgot that while focusing on externalities such as my weight was all well and good and entirely overdue, being thinner wasn't going to amount to a hill of beans if I didn't address other health problems that were perhaps less immediately visible but no less important to my overall well-being.
Take, for example, Tooth #19- or as I like to call it, the Root Canal of the Living Dead.
To say that I had had an unpleasant root canal experience would be an understatement. It was over ten years ago and I had woken up one morning to find myself in excruciating pain. When I could finally get to my dentist, he informed me that a lifetime of grinding my teeth had resulted in a cracked molar which had become infected and would require an emergency root canal in order to save the tooth.
A few hours later I am whisked away to the local endodontist, who begins work only to discover (SPOILERS: Do not continue reading if you wince at the sound of a dentist's drill!) that my aggrieved tooth is so "hot" that they can't actually get it numb without drilling until they hit the root and injecting it directly with anesthetic. This wasn't just as unpleasant as it sounds, but far, far worse, and was without a doubt the most pain I'd ever experienced in my life to date.
Until last Friday, that is. While I'd been warned by several dentists that my root canal was in danger of failing and that I would either need to make a return visit to the endodontist or have the tooth itself extracted, the combined fear of additional agony and the prospect of several additional bank-breaking copays meant that kept putting off the inevitable until... well, the inevitable happened.
Last week I found myself in an ever-increasing amount of discomfort until late Thursday night when the discomfort ramped up suddenly into blinding pain. Silly me, I actually thought for a moment that I'd be able to tough it out with ibuprofen, ice packs, and some Orajel, but sure enough I was back in the dentist's chair by Saturday, and walked out of the office with a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers, an emergency consult with my endodontist, and my tail tucked decidedly between my legs.
You see, folks, I dun goofed. Making It Happen is an all or nothing prospect. Either I commit myself to radical, transformative change on every front or I might as well not change anything at all. This includes tackling all of the problems that I've always allowed to fester (such as my wayward tooth) because I felt like I never had the time, the resources, or the psychic bandwidth to address. But there is always time for change, if you make time for it. My health does matter, and ensuring good health can only be money well spent in the long run.
As far as committing the psychic bandwidth, this is perhaps still the hardest part. I've struggled for so long on so many fronts that sometimes I let myself believe that it is my lot in life simply to struggle, when all the while success is right there within my grasp if only I can muster to courage to seize it with both hands and never let it go. Okay, Tooth #19, I get it now. It's time to be bold. Time to Make It Happen across the board - no exceptions, no excuses!
The lesson has been learned, thank you very much- now be a good little molar and stop bothering me for another 10-12 years...
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