what’s more fun than a a root canal? going through a root canal and then learning it didn’t work so you have to have the tooth extracted and a cadaver bone graft put in place to help build the “significant” ( word choice of the oral surgeon ) amount of bone loss you’ve suffered from the infection that’s been raging in your mandible ( as if the prospect of getting my skeleton worked on isn’t weird enough, i will now have the first what might be several bone grafts from a cadaver in my jaw ).

like everyone else, the oral surgeon was surprised i have not felt any pain which is the normal early indicator of an infection in your tooth and helps signal something is wrong before it spreads to your jaw and beyond. “yeah, you’re atypical”

i’ll try not to ruminate too much on why i’m not feeling any pain. or what other types of pain i might not be feeling ( after marathons, i feel tired for sure, but not painful per se ). what is pain? do i process some sorts of pain differently than others? or maybe i do feel pain but i’ve gotten really good at ignoring it?