It’s been four weeks since my cardiovascular system mutinied. I feel perfectly fine. I plan on going for a long-ish ride tomorrow. I plan on not dying.
My body has recently decided that it’s not through screwing with me. I was up half the night with a pain in my foot. It’s the return of my Morton’s neuroma. (It’s an inflamed nerve that runs several inches between and behind my “ring” and middle toes. It felt like someone was sticking a knife in my foot.
The nerve finally calmed down after a couple of hours. I swear I could hear snickering coming from my foot.
Today I went to the dentist for my semi-annual exercise in mindfulness. I HATE going to the dentist. I get all tense expecting intense pain while my teeth are being cleaned. This is not without reason. I have had some pretty unpleasant dental visits including the time the endodontist prepared to close off the hole in my front tooth from which he had removed my root. The problem was that he removed only half the root. There was still a live nerve in the hole. I literally jumped out of the seat. He said, “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” I kicked him in the balls and said “Neither was that!”
Okay I lied about the kick in the balls. But the pain went straight up my nose into my brain. It was an Olivier/Hoffman Marathon Man moment. (Ironically, I ran marathons at the time.)
The blood thinner has caused my gums to get all inflamed in the past week. I tried a home remedy that seemed to calm things down. I just put mouthwash in my mouth and hold it along my gum line. It stings but the gums waved a white flag.
The cleaning today went much better than expected. Occasionally during the cleaning something would hurt. My hands tensed up waiting for that jump-out-of-the-chair moment. So, and here’s the mindfulness part, I focused on the fact that the pain was insignificant. I consciously relaxed my hands which relaxed my arms and my shoulders. And reminded myself that I am just anticipating pain that will probably not arise. And every time I found my hands clenching, I’d just repeat the routine.
It sounds pretty weird but it worked.
So my body tried to get me again but my brain triumphed. Until the dentist came in and said words I hadn’t heard in ten years: “You have a cavity.”
I go to the dermatologist next week. Do you think maybe I should reschedule?
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 