Speechless

Speechless

What’d you say?

Our son, who lives three hours away from us had become ill and after one week in the hospital, was for the better part of a month, was bedridden. While his wife worked, his teenage daughter, when she wasn’t in school, took over the household chores. The thirteen-year-old grew up in a heartbeat.

My husband and I would drive to my son’s house and stay from Friday afternoons to Sunday afternoons, helping my granddaughter clean, do laundry, cook, and in general, give the girl a well-deserved break.

My husband would do yard work, and if he saw anything that might need to be done, he did it.

Yes, my son recovered, and things were back to normal for them.

For the amount of time we spent always going home from my son’s house, my husband and I would often stop at McDonald’s for a frappe. It was our treat to ourselves. Now and then, even though we had lunch before we left central Florida, when we ordered our frappes, we’d also include a large serving of fries to share on the long drive home.

We spent the time talking about what we did at my son’s house and what we felt still needed fixing, and how much time we’d need to accomplish it all while my son was still recovering from his surgery.

There was one particular weekend when we left my son’s house and made our usual stop for our “jobs well done” treats, things changed. I enjoyed a cool sip of my frappe. My husband heard me sigh, “Mmm, this is so good.”

I started picking at the fries.

Suddenly, I felt something hard in my mouth. It was too hard to be a piece of the potato. Trying not to look gross, I grabbed a napkin and spit the hard particle out. It was a piece of my tooth!

A few months earlier, I noticed what I thought was a slight crack in my tooth but hesitated to go to the dentist. I really don’t like anyone poking at my teeth. Now, I had no choice. The following morning, I called his office and explained what happened. The receptionist said I should go right in.

I arrived at the dentist’s office within the hour and I calmly (?) sat in the exam chair. No, I wasn’t happy about being there, especially, since I had no idea what he’d be doing inside my mouth!

After examining the tooth and taking his uncomfortable x-rays, he determined that he could save the tooth using a porcelain filling. Okay, so far so good. No yanking the tooth out. No root canal was needed. I began to relax, until . . .

The dentist’s assistant walked over with a little silver tray upon which lay a very large syringe halfway filled with Novocain. Holy moly, he was going to inject that numbing stuff in my gum. True, the numbing medication wasn’t all that bad once it became effective, but I wasn’t happy at all about the needle.

I grabbed the arm rests of the chair and squeezed hard enough where I thought I’d be breaking them off. My body stiffened to the point where every muscle in it began to ache.

“Open wide. You’ll feel just a little pinch.”

Why do they say that? “Just a little pinch.” It definitely is NOT just a little pinch. It hurts like, well, I’m sure everyone knows how it hurts!

One hour later, I pulled into my garage, my tooth fixed, my lips, my gums, and part of my nose were still numb.

“The numbness will wear off in about an hour,” he said.

While my tooth looked great, as if it had never been broken, it was way more than an hour before my mouth was back to normal.

In the meantime, I tried telling my husband what the dentist did but instead of saying that “he put two small screws in the tooth to keep the filling intact,” I said, “he pu wo in ma mth oo eep the lll in.”

My husband laughed and said, “What? He did what?”

“Wait,” he said. “Instead of trying to talk, here, write it down.” He handed me a pad and pencil.

After writing it down, I pulled my lips to the side to reveal my tooth, then said, “Eee? Ooos ood, huh?”

He shook his head and walked away.

While the Novocain began wearing off, the numbness turned to a tingle as the nerves were reawakened. I knew there wasn’t anything I could do, but I kept rubbing at my lips anyway. Mr. Sympathy handed me an ice cube wrapped in a clean cloth and told me to press it to my lips. The last thing I wanted was for the cold ice to make my lips numb again. Yet, not to hurt my husband’s feelings, I took the wrapped-up ice cube and rather than just hold it on my lips, I rubbed it back and forth.

Clearly, supper was delayed that day and since my lips were still somewhat numb, I avoided drinking anything that didn’t have a straw.

After dinner was finished and the dishes washed, we had a good laugh about my non-verbal skills. My husband said it was the first time since he met me, some thirty years ago, that I was truly rendered speechless.