Tooth

A few minutes ago, I was leaning over my bed (which is actually just a few inches above the floor anyway) and spitting blood into the lid of an empty Chinese food container. Remembering a conversation I had with a friend a week or so ago, I started to concentrate on the pattern created by the flow of blood around and through the stack of tissues in the middle of the container. This seemed to ease the pain a little...or at least make me forget about it for a little while.

The searing pain itself brought back vivid memories of living at Bates--of the last time a problem with one of my wisdom teeth sent me to the emergency room. I remember clutching the edge of the chair in the room they stuck me in because they couldn't leave me screaming in the waiting room for two hours. I leaned over the left edge of the chair, and as I screamed, a mixture of blood and saliva shot towards the floor.

Tooth pain is probably the worst physical pain I have experienced, though the menstrual cramps I experienced in my early teens are a very close second to that. Earlier this morning, I took eight Excedrin, and it made me absolutely ill. I don't think I've fully recovered from it either. I was sick to my stomach, dizzy, feverish, and a little out of it. But it was still better than having to deal with the feeling of having a hammer smashed straight down into your tooth, that feeling radiating out to your ears and right through your skull. When you're in that kind of pain, it's the only thing you can think about.

Jon is coming up the stairs. Done for now.