I relented and arranged to have my teeth checked. The constant gnawing on my brain had moved from annoying, to aggravating, to maddening, to please pull out that M.F.S.O.B. (and yank that piece of brain out with it will ya).

They found that the renegade tooth was one I had problems with about 6 months back. The root, like Adam Lambert, had come out of the closet. On a wing and a prayer, the dentist tried to bury the problem with more cement. Unfortunately, he didn’t pray hard enough, and the following day, I was flapping in pain. A root canal was inevitable.

The guy who did my root canal had a line of patients akin to the most popular ride in a theme park,  and in consequence went about his business in a very hurried manner. Once the chair I was confined to had reclined fully, he swung the light over my face to spotlight my mouth. And he went to work with the speed and vigour of a Formula-1 pit crew. He wasted no time sticking a needle into my gums, which numbed one side of my face, and then proceeded to prod, drill, drain and hum. Yup, he hummed… to the smooth jazz tones that were playing above. I wasn’t sure to be comforted by his confidence, or disturbed by his merriment. At one point I kicked out in pain when he drilled into my nerve. SOB seemed to have anticipated that this would happen, as he already had another syringe of feelgood on standby. Without blinking an eye, he delivered the shot into my gums and continued to disembowel my tooth. About a couple minutes later, he tells me, “I’ve killed the nerve, you can relax now.” I really wanted to believe him but just couldn’t bring myself to. My body at the time was so tense it was taut as piano wire. And it stayed that way until the parking lot.

After I got home, my tooth still did not feel quite right. A few hours later, when the morphine subsided, the pain returned in the same manner that the dentist worked, fast and furious. I was back in his chair again for a second time, and almost a third. Though my tooth still hurt like a mofo, I said to myself, “Timeout. My tooth doesn’t need to be cured. It needs to be healed.” And so I proceeded to meditate. And each day has been better than the last.