Teeth

Those of you who knew me last year probably remember my problems spring quarter. All of my wisdom teeth got infected at once. I had four extractions and three root canals in under a month. At the peak I was going in twice a week, gutting my family's savings and my time. By the end I had developed a resistance to Novocaine. No wonder I was so depressed and assholeish that quarter.

I remember my relief at the end of the quarter, knowing that the ordeal was finally behind me. I was wrong. Yesterday I went in for a routine checkup. I left with three root canals. If I'm lucky I'll only need two more appointments. The next one is tomorrow. Already I can feel the crushing dread: it never gets better and it never ends.

Then again, I'm not the same person I was six months ago. Back then I would have curled into a ball and cried. Now... well, I still want to curl into a ball and cry, but I'm also wondering if I can benefit from this. They say that hardship makes us stronger. In order to overcome our obstacles we have to grow and develop the power to cope.

 The short term hardships are:

• Pain (operation)
• Pain (recovery)
• Time loss (transit, dental work)
• Fear (hopelessness, needles, pain)
• Negativity (grouchiness, anger, from other hardships)

The time loss is inevitable. At least this is all before reading period and not during prime study seasons. The pain is also unavoidable. The needles hurt a lot, and there will be a 2-3 day period where my teeth will hurt like hell. Painkuillers can only do so much. I've gotten pretty good at eating with sore teeth, and I no longer I accidentally rap them on each other. My pain tolerance is improving a little bit. Silver linings.

So the big things are learning to live with the fear and not worsening my personality in the process. The fear happened because every time I came in for my last appointment they'd schedule "just two more". Nothing would be okay ever again. Every time I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel would stretch. And even when I thought it was all over... yeah, I think I have good reason to be afraid.

There are two things I can do to deal with this. First, I've arranged both of my next appointments to be before I go home for break. If you need "just two more", too bad. I get a two week break before the next evisceration. There's a hard cap on when I last go in. Certainly not as bad as "first week to eleventh."

Number two. It might help to understand the core of the fear. I think it's all a manifestation of my feelings of powerlessness. There was no way I could have prevented my teeth problems. There's no way I can reduce the number or costs of my appointments. I don't even know when it is going to end; the goalposts shift so much I lose even that tiny bit of knowledge. I feel like I have absolutely no control over my situation. This isn't something I can just accept; the only way to deal with it is to take back my agency. Only then can I escape the omnipresent fear.

How do I do that? I dunno. I've tried to keep the pain and time loss from impacting my academic and social life. Keep at least a little bit of power over the rest of my life. That's the only thing I can do. I might be able to extend this. If I do more I will have more things in my life that I can control, which takes the edge off the dread.

This segues nicely into the personality problems. I'm sure at least a couple of you noticed how irrationally controlling and spiteful I got last quarter, and I'm feeling that start up again. The pain and stress and fear mess with my head. I know this is hard to quantify- how do we know what we have felt in different circumstances?- but it's obviously there. I used to swear pretty rarely, and only with great effort and gravity. The day I got my wisdom teeth out I started swearing like a sailor. That definitely wasn't a natural evolution of my personality.

This is the thing I worry about least and should worry about most. It's an incredibly subtle hardship that can hurt both me and others without me ever realizing why. It also emphasizes a flaw I have: I let fear/anger/pain cloud my thinking. A Better Me would be able to function at least as well as Current Me even under extreme stress. I may not necessarily be able to stop feeling the fear/anger/pain, but I should be able to cope with it. I think this can be improved by being constantly aware of how my personality is changing. So if any of you see me acting more abrasive/sociopathic/angsty than normal, give me hell about it.

Eleven hours until my next appointment. I'm not looking forward to it.