Finding root

T’was the night before Christmas…

Yeah right, who am I kidding?

The year was twenty fourteen, the place was Lagos Nigeria and the player was me.
It was about a week to Christmas. I lay flat on my back, mouth open wide and my not so large head nestled snugly between his palm and a blue cushion.
The next lines could have been he looked at me with eyes the colour of rain kissed wood, held my gaze with a promise of passion and whispered sweet nothings in my ear but sadly, this was real life and I was quite peeved.

I had been about that position for over two hours and was fighting the temptation to stick the one finger he asked me to hold up if I was in pain into his eyeballs whenever he asked me to open my already open mouth.
I was beginning to feel like an out-of-luck Crocodile who's open mouth was so unimpressive that even the dumbest of preys had failed to fall captive. I had my mouth thrust wide open to the best of my ability and still he said to open.

Did my mouth suddenly resemble chicken wings to be broken in halves and divided among friends? Did he want to use my mouth to disprove Hooke's law of elasticity or was he simply trying to widen the conversation gap between us?

I would not classify the trip to said dentist as a last resort or an act of desperation.
It happened as a result of necessity streaming from ignorance of the saying ‘physician heal thyself’.

It is so easy to tell a sick person “chei ya, kpele”, “keep yourself hydrated oh”, “eat fruits”, “exercise more”, “eat vegetables” “drink medicine”, “drink Agbo ” and what have you but when it comes to you being the sick one and doing the things you so confidently urged a ‘stubborn’ sick person to do it becomes wahala.

Eight months ago during a routine check-up, my dentist noticed a cavity in my tooth and told me to have it looked at before I came for my next visit.
Five months later, without reading my case notes she noticed what was apparently the same cavity and told me to have it looked at. I feigned ignorance and acted like it was the 1st time I was informed of this anomaly.

Four weeks ago, I went for 'vackay' at a resort and was having the time of my life - 22 hour power supply, uninterrupted streams of cold drinking water, swimming pool, picnic grounds, a zoo with living animals, lake-view, fish-pond, even bicycles for 2 (not built for 2 though).

I was in my happy bubble until I was awoken one night by a sharp piercing pain.
It felt like a hand drill was boring through my ears with the intention of locating and destroying my third brain.
For an instant I thought I was having a serious nightmare (or spiritual attack maybe?) and attempted to pray it away until I realized I was wide awake and moaning out loud.

After manifesting and running around like a headless chicken (which included acts like trying to disconnect my head from my spine, waking everybody else that had the audacity to be sleeping while I died from pain and attempting to put my head in the freezer to chill the pain), I took a serious NSAID and passed out.
I had similar episodes for the rest of the trip until I returned home and was only able to sleep after consuming (possibly expired) drugs.
It was then with 'tail between my legs' I called my dentist and told her of my pain slash new addiction to painkillers. 
Feeling emphatic but unable to assist she told me to bear through the weekend, gave me the address of a dental clinic close to my home and warned me to reduce the amount of pills I was taking.

For the rest of the weekend my bed became my lover, I did not want to 'leave him', all the urging to gargle with salt and warm water or use a cold compress fell on deaf ears.
I wanted a fast relief and “I wanted it now!!”

Ensuing the addition of the ‘root canal therapy’ badge to my 'dental milestones' I often wonder what other 'party' could be held in this 'little mouth of mine'.

While I continued to focus on keeping my mouth open, after examining the fading x-ray for what appeared to be the millionth time, the nice doctor removed his face mask, sighed and said he was not happy about the third root (okay so I knew teeth are buried in sockets and ligaments so its possible that it could have roots but having more than one root for a single tooth is news).
At that point, he had located and was satisfied with two roots but the third one? Not so much. He then proceeded to ask if I would be happy to return for the next session on Christmas day.
At that point, I wondered if the good doctor had suddenly gone insane. Like leaving the 'good stuff' and fantasizing about drinking cold water in an air conditioned room on Christmas day was not bad enough, he expected me to actually use my mouth without duress and say “yes please”, come for surgery and afterwards spend the rest of my holiday smiling and waving away plates of rice, turkey, coleslaw and the works that I could look at but not touch?
"G*d forbid bad thing!!"
I bluntly told him "No thanks".
As soon as he was done with his shenanigans in my mouth, I grabbed my handbag and scurried out of the clinic without a backwards glance.
T’will be a little while before I am ‘opening wide’ for the nice doctor again.

*PS, Merry Christmas!!