Toothache is the worst pain in the world, I have decided.

Some people who have given birth may beg to differ, and since one is not only in steady pain, but is also passing a basketball at the same time, I certainly accept the possibility that they are right. I have also heard that a broken rib is right up there in the pain hall of fame, since merely breathing causes pain, but I used to have cramps that would fell a rhino, and I once had a headache for two days that sent me to the hospital, and nothing can even come close to a toothache in terms of pain so overwhelming that nothing else seems to matter.

Yesterday, when I got up after the Great Night of Pain Not to Mention No Sleep, I turned on the Today Show and was seriously surprised that they weren't talking about my tooth--I am not joking, I really expected Al Roker to say, "There are storms in the Southwest, another hot day in the Northeast, and Kymm Zuckert in Weehawken, New Jersey has a really really bad toothache."

Okay, so I was a little loopy with the pain and no sleep, but I don't see how anything else they were planning to talk about on the show could even remotely rival my intense pain in importance.

So, when I got up, the first thing I did was call my dentist, Dr. Berman (and if anyone needs a good dentist in Manhattan, email me, I recommend him with full marks) and he fit me in at 4p.

I worked as best as I could, though I spent most of the day out of pain, it was only just gone away, I knew that it was coming back as soon as I dropped my guard. I felt tense the whole day, as though I were trying to act casual, yet I knew that any second I'd feel a policeman's hand on my shoulder, "Come along with me, miss, we know what you did," and haul me off to jail.

Or something. I'm insane with pain, don't forget. Or anticipation of pain.

So, when 4p came round, there I was at the dentist's office, absolutely terrified that all of this pain meant another root canal.

The last one was before I had this journal, back when I was working for Nynex. I had broken a tooth, but it didn't hurt a bit, so I put off having it fixed, because I didn't have any insurance, but then, after awhile, by golly it hurt, and I went in, and they said that I have let it go too long, and I needed it to be canaled.

They sent me to a special root canal guy, also known as a Nazi Dentist Torturer, who, when I was crying and moaning from the pain, yelled at me to stop. So I did, even though it hurt every second, he just thought that I was being an hysteric, that I was acting like it hurt because I expected it to hurt, not because it actually hurt.

When he goes to hell, Satan's imps will be working on his teeth throughout eternity, let me tell you, and yelling him and calling him names when he cries.

Anyway, Dr.Berman x-rayed me and said that although I had a cavity, the problem was not my tooth but my gum, so he would fill the cavity on Monday and do some super gum stuff right then, and he gave me some Novocaine.

"Remember, I need the Super Shot!"
"I will give you the Super Shot."

I have a really high resistance to Novocaine, something that alot of dentists don't believe (see Mean Shit-Head Nazi Dentist above), and end up having to give me like eight shots, or just act like I'm pretending that I can still feel it, but Dr. Berman knows that I'm for real, and gives me the Super Shot right at the top.

I can tell when it's working, because my hands start shaking like Ray Milland's at the end of The Lost Weekend. Novocaine is chock full of adrenaline, you see, so the Super Shot makes me shake and makes it difficult to put a sentence together clearly, because my thoughts race so. But it doesn't hurt, whatever he does, and that's the important thing.

And since I was in pain to start with, (it had come back with a vengeance while I was on the bus going to the office), this was the sweetest Super Shot ever.

Then he gave me scrips for antibiotics (funnily, it was doxycycline, a medication that I took for acne many years ago) and Tylenol with codeine, and I went home, got them filled, and took a codeine before the novocaine had a chance to wear off, and I was happy as a clam.

The absence of pain is the sweetest feeling in the world.

Horoscope d'aujourd'hui:
A friend criticizes you. Take it as intended to be helpful and resist retaliation.

il y a un an aujourd'hui:
The rest of us knew that when the company takes you out, you have the appetizer and you have the dessert and you have as many sodas as you can otherwise you are wasting it!

* Hier / Incrément / Ce Mois / Demain *

La poste

Graphiques de Saundra la multilingue!
Traduction français par ma mère Gladys Holland.

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Dernier mis à jour Lundi 20 Août 01:20:09 2001