TAIA BOOKS

3/14/2024

I felt sick. I didn’t know the nature of my sickness, but I knew that something was wrong with me. At first, I didn’t have any symptoms other than feeling tired and somewhat anxious, but I thought that was expected compared to what they dragged me through. Considering my predicament, I thought I was coping pretty well. Staying strong. Then, I ended up with a toothache. It’s really strange that I finally have a toothache at the age of 40. The toothache didn’t go away. And I didn’t try to mask it with Ibuprofen or Tylenol or other typical over-the-counter meds; I was so surprised by its occurrence that I partly wanted to experience how it feels to have a toothache, and partly I knew that masking something aint the same thing as fixing a problem.

Throughout my life, I have always had really good teeth. I was never fearful of dentists. They acted like they were happy to see me and complimented me for doing a great job at taking care of my teeth. The only problem I experienced was when a dentist advised me to pull out my wisdom teeth in my twenties. I did this because I always listen to experts as long as they provide me with a logical explanation. My previous dentist convinced me to pull out my wisdom teeth because he claimed that teeth tend to shift, and my perfectly lined teeth can become crooked with wisdom teeth.

I am not a huge fan of sacrificing things for the sake of beauty, and thankfully, God or nature provided me with great genes that, without much effort, people said I looked beautiful. I look the way I look, but at the same time, my philosophy is not to damage what I have. Therefore, I decided to pull my wisdom teeth out to preserve the perfect line of my teeth. It wasn’t a horrible experience, but it was painful and inconvenient. I went through the ordeal hoping it would pay off and prevent me from correcting something else in my mouth in the long term. This time, however, as my toothache with every passing day grew intense and constant, I ended up seeing my dentist not when things were horrible, but I felt that in a few days, I would be there.

My dentist is a nice and friendly gentleman who is so passionate about teeth that he has a collection of fake jaws and teeth in his waiting room, and as he checks my mouth, he always provides great information about how to take care of teeth. A true expert. He checked my tooth and provided me with an interesting diagnosis. No, it wasn’t a cavity, as I expected. Brushing, flossing, rinsing, and making good food choices didn’t fail my teeth. My tooth ached from being fractured. Fractured! As a leg or an arm or any other bone. This fractured tooth was the only fractured thing in my body. And of all the body parts that could be fractured, it was a tooth. My dentist said that I grind and clench my teeth at night. At that moment, I realized I was clenching my teeth together as I listened, so I opened my mouth to relax my jaw. He declared that it was due to stress. I immediately remembered that for over a year, I experienced so much stress at work, and it was getting worse and worse.

The solution was to patch up my tooth and see a therapist. The toothache immediately went away. My dentist was gentle with my mouth, so I didn’t end up with any abrasions. That’s because I believe nature leads me to the right experts. However, seeing a therapist was something I decided to do later. Sometime later… I didn’t have the time or energy, and I had a lot going on. So much, in fact, that in a month, I ended up with another aching tooth on the same side, right next to the first one. This time, I didn’t wait like I had with the first one, and I ended up seeing my dentist much sooner. Another fractured tooth. From clenching and grinding my teeth at night. From stress… I need to see a therapist. This time, however, in addition to patching up my tooth, I went through the ordeal of getting a mold tooth guard. Getting mold was so uncomfortable that at one point, for a brief moment, I thought my nice and kind dentist decided to kill me by blocking my biggest airway with molding clay. Just as I started to fight for my life by giving a technician a sign that I was suffocating, she quickly pulled everything out of my mouth and declared that everything was done. I was supposed to return to the office in a couple of weeks to pick up my new guard.

As I was driving home, I thought that broken teeth were not a joke and that I should probably not wait until I fractured all my teeth, became toothless, and then who knows where my psychological state would take me. From my experience as a nurse, most psychologically sick people resisted the idea that anything was wrong with them. I think they had too much denial or pride, but I’m not sure what exactly. They all looked similar to the biblical description of Nebuchadnezzar. No, I didn’t want to wait for that. In fact, I was afraid to do really inappropriate things in public and became unaware of that. As usual, I decided not to wait for my mental state to get worse and scheduled an appointment to see a therapist.