Premolar extraction 

You must understand that as a guy of the high-sensitivity, deep-feeling variety, few things are more daunting than a visit to the dentist. For an extraction, no less.  

This is because, as a guy of the high-sensitivity, deep-feeling variety, every sensation is amplified, every experience a dalliance with either euphoria or deep existential disillusionment, every emotion a highly charged affair that can trigger a brilliant essay or a thorough reflection of Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia. 

 Hint: This is not a foray into Sigmund, ergo you are reading a brilliant essay. 

It is with this propensity for foreboding that I had two premolars removed this week. The appointment had been in my diary for just under five weeks, so I went into it with five weeks’ worth of dread.  

Contrary to my high-sensitivity, deep-feeling anticipation, the actual procedure was relatively short at about 20 minutes. And even then, noted the affable Dr Desai (whose broad shoulders and reassuring tone give you an immediate sense of ease – as though you were chatting casually with your friend – about root canals), that was long: Usually, he said, he’d get it done in about 10 minutes. The challenge with me is that my orthodontist had kept the wires of my braces on, which meant Dr Desai had to use all his broad-shouldered, reassuring-toned experience to pull my teeth around the braces. That’s deft. That’s impressive. That’s 007 stuff. That’s Extraction stuff – the action-packed film starring Chris Hemsworth, whose task to extract a kid out of a conflict zone now seemed trivial in light of Dr Desai’s assignment. That, sir, is extraction.  

The aftermath hasn’t been terrible either. Slight swelling on either side of my jaws makes me look like I’m either bracing or inexplicably resisting the impulse to swallow. If you happen to come across me in this state, rest assured I am not tensing up or hiding gumballs in my cheeks. Anyway, that’s all the inconvenience it’s caused. 

Dr Desai, like the pilot during preflight announcements, offered me an interesting but ultimately inconsequential factoid: “Your premolars are about 40% longer than the average.” Upon hearing this, I quickly ran through possible responses to such a revelation. “Wow” and “that’s incredible, Doc” seemed respectively flat and misplaced. In my anaesthetised state, however, I couldn’t think of a third alternative. Thus, with a flat, numb-lipped “wow” we concluded the awkward post-extraction talk, which is designed to make you feel as normal as possible after your mouth has been treated like a construction site. 

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The discomfort of premolar extraction pales in comparison to the abrupt loss of someone you love.  

Death-loss, it seems to me, has the redemptive quality that it is inevitable. We can do nothing about it, and it is unequivocal and final. There is much that is mysterious about death, but that it happens is a fact that confronts all of us, everywhere, all the time. In this sense, death is not mysterious at all; it is just jarring.  

The kind of loss that does not have the finality of death – that’s the kind that really does a number on our hearts. Why would someone you’ve held dear for a long time, one who, as Anita Barrows puts it in Questo Muro, “you thought would accompany you always”, simply stop speaking to you? 

You are left with nothing but questions, suppositions, sighs, and more questions. And maybe, you think, the pain would be assuaged if you’d seen it coming, if perhaps it had been scheduled on your Google Calendar, like a premolar extraction. 

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I kept my bum squeezed – a manoeuvre more involuntary than one might think – right through the tooth-pulling procedure. Dr Desai’s assurance that no pain would be felt, that “you’ll just feel a bit of pressure”, didn’t do much to put me at ease – not much more, I mean, than his broad shoulders and confident tone had given me at first. When he asked me, in the middle of the procedure, steel tongs and all in my mouth, whether I was in any pain, I shook my head slightly. “No.” 

But you see, that’s not quite how it happened. His exact words were: “Am I hurting you?” 

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I wish that the ones we love, the ones that suddenly stop talking to us, would ask (in a state of spontaneous lucidity): My dear, am I hurting you with my abrupt absence? 

But I know that this is a fool’s wish. What exactly would one’s response be to such a question, of which the answer is so obvious? Of course you’re hurting me. Why are you doing this? What is happening in your heart? What is happening in your head? What did I do to be demoted to the status of an irritation you do not have the energy for? What did I do? What should I do? 

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One thing you should not do during a premolar extraction is freak out or make any sudden movements. That’s not my own wisdom (tooth); that’s what Dr Desai instructed clearly and repeatedly. “Just relax and don’t move too much, okay? There’ll be some pressure but try not to freak out.” 

There’ll be some pressure. When a person you care deeply about stops talking to you altogether, it’ll suck, but do not freak out. This life we are living confounds even the wisest, most street-smart among us.  

There’s gonna be some pressure, but breathe easy.  

Try not to make too drastic a move in an effort to avoid the discomfort. Try not make any assumptions. Arrive at no conclusions. There is an intelligence at work, although it feels like we are as vulnerable to life’s unpredictability as a patient on a dentist’s chair (I’ll have you know that Dr Desai is no mere dentist; he is on orofacial surgeon, and a fine one at that). 

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In the middle of the extraction, Dr Desai had a (rather successful) go at gallows humour. After pulling furiously at my right jaw for a while – no pain, just pressure – he announced that one side was done, and there was one to go.  
“Did I hurt you?” he asked. 
I shook my head. 

“So that’s a no,” he confirms. “Okay. I’ll try harder on the other side.” 

I tried to laugh, but all I could muster was a weird gurgling sound, which was its own achievement given all the argy-bargy going on in my balloon mouth.  

“Dental humour,” he clarified. 

Giggle-gurgle.