Dental Emergencies, Laughter, and Other Disruptions
- At January 07, 2015
- By Jeannine Gailey
- In Blog
- 0
The cliche says that if you want to make God laugh, make plans. Well, I had a ton of plans for this week, which have all been postponed thanks to a small-filling-gone-awry which has left me scrambling to find an endodontist to do some emergency surgery and the left side of my face swelled up, like I’ve been in a boxing match, and the left side of my face in excruciating pain. At 41, I am facing my first ever root canal, and I can’t say I’m excited about that. For the last couple of days, my brain, often an organ I rely upon to get me through hard times, has been literally scrambled by pain. I can’t take many pain medications except Tylenol due to allergies (for the big dogs of dental work pain – Vicodin, Codeine, and morphine) and the bleeding disorder (which nixes NSAIDS and aspirin.) I have an exposed nerve/root and I have to say it is not at all comfortable.
So I’ve been making my apologies to everyone, drinking soup and eating jello, watching throwback movies (Ladyhawke, anyone? Still a fun conceit, but I was distracted by an absolutely terrible synth-driven score) and trying not to think how this is going to make me late on some of my writing projects. Because life is full of surprise disruptions. Trying to handle them with grace is part of the journey.
In bigger, non-personal news, today the news reports a terrorist attack on a French humor newspaper, because there’s nothing, apparently, that intolerant people hate more than humor. (Think North Korea and the Interview, which falls under this category as well.) These are disruptions of a larger sort. How do we survive in a world that seems sometimes poised to destroy us? Well, we have to continue to be brave enough to laugh.
On that note, watching MST3K late last night (sleeping is not possible lately, so this is a good way to pass the small hours of the morning) I noticed a game-show skit with a call out to the cold war and a shout-out to the subject of my upcoming book, Oak Ridge. The darkest joke, which I think I’ll make a little poem out of, involves one of the answers to the question “What are the two biggest lies about nuclear war?” “We can win a nuclear war” and “The survivors are the lucky ones.” (Bonus depressing fact from this skit: the most radioactive and deadly movie set? Look up “cancer controversy and John Wayne’s The Conquerors.”) On that note, I’m off to ice my face and groan some more! Enjoy the clip!