Pain vs. Suffering

"Pain is necessary. Suffering is not"--Todd Norian

A few weeks ago I went on a yoga retreat with the wonderful Todd Norian, which was a phenomenal experience. Yoga for seven hours a day, including morning meditation at 6:30 am each day. I saw the sun rise and spread its rosy fingers across the Berkshires sky. I felt better and healthier than I have in years.

I've been holding the above phrase close to me, and in light of recent events, I am holding it even closer. Pain tells the brain that something is wrong, and a change must happen. Pain tells you that you better take your hand out of the fire. Pain tells you that where you are now, is not where you need to be. Pain is reflexive, instinctive, and yes, necessary for survival.

Suffering, on the other hand, is a choice. Suffering is a mindset, a dark cloak that one puts on and wears as a fashion statement. It's also a garment that's hard to take off.

Pain forces you to be in action, suffering keeps you where you are.

It seems like such a simple distinction, a slight shift, but one that has really been of benefit to me. I'm not interested in suffering anymore. I'm interested in fixing things. I'm interested in looking on the bright side. I'm interested in wearing pink. I'm interested in raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. (Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, too.) Quite frankly, I'm interested in smiling.

Fancy that.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Choices

In a rather challenging yoga class on Saturday, my instructor told us to do one last asana of our choice. "Put your legs up the wall, do a bridge or a wheel, do a final headstand," she offered. "There is no good choice or bad choice, it's just a choice."

I love that she said that.

From my last posting, you can see that I have a choice to make, and I have been worried about making a good choice. Returning to my present ortho is a choice, but one that makes my stomach turn. Going to the doctor who thinks expensive surgery is my best bet is also a choice, as is seeing doctor #2. Visiting more doctors for more opinions is also a choice. Any of them could be right, and any of them could be wrong.

The great irony here is that I've been getting lots of compliments lately about how good my teeth look, just as I've lost my faith in orthodontia. I feel like I did in 1993, when, after being sick with the Bejing flu, which caused me to lose 30 pounds in six weeks, I was told how fabulous I looked. It brings up that age old "do the ends justify the means" question.

The only real answer is that something has to change. And only a choice can bring that change into action. It's very Yoda, isn't it? Do, or do not. There is no try.

Ah, the force.

The Dilly

As you've noticed, I have not blogged in some time. A lot has happened and I really did not want to talk about it. But perhaps now is the time.

In December, I went to my ortho to have my braces tightened. I pointed out to him that my back three teeth on the lower left side were all torqued where they had been fine two months earlier. This was largely due to the fact that a bracket on one of the back teeth had broken off over a year ago and despite many requests to have it replaced, he refused. He told me that the torquing was "fine." When I told him that it most certainly was not fine, he put the bracket back on, but only because I protested. This, among other similar incidences of late have made me increasingly more uncomfortable with his care.

I tried to get an answer out of him as to the status of my treatment, and where it was going. I have tried for some time to get this information but as usual he only gave me vague answers, pointing once again to the back molar that we're waiting to turn 90 degrees. Since month 16 (when he noticed that molar, mind you) this is the only concrete information that he's given me about my treatment.

I spent a sleepless and angry weekend after that tightening, upset that I have no idea what's going on. I made an appointment on Monday to speak to my doctor--simply talk, without any distractions to find out what's going on. In the privacy of his back room, which I haven't seen in two and a half years since this all started, I asked him calmly, "I'd really like to know the prognosis from this moment forward, and how long you anticipate that my treatment will take."

Well.

He raised his voice at me, pointing to the fact that he "sees 95 patients a day, and if any of them go beyond their time, it doesn't work for my business model. It only makes sense if you keep to your time or less. You are all paid up and I can't sustain an office with patients that are all paid up. You are useless to me. Do you know what we call patients like you? We call them dead wood."

He went on for some 10 minutes, and despite my exclamations punctuating his more inflammatory statements (I was also told that I'm bad PR for his office as I'll tell all my friends that my doctor can't keep to the time that's promised), he never stopped his tirade and made it clear that this was not a dialogue.

In the moment, I tried to be as placating and reasonable as possible, because I figured that I still needed him to do work. I tried to find real solutions that he shot down everytime. ("No, you can't come more often.") At the end of this discussion, I still had no answers as to where my treatment was, or how much longer it would take.

This started a whole month of angry sleeplessness, waking up panicked at 5am every morning. Panic is not a usual state for me--the last time I had this kind of prolonged panic was in 1995. In addition to the panic, my jaw, teeth and even skull were hurting tremendously. I could no longer trust my doctor, and certainly could not go back to him. I felt betrayed, diminished and, quite frankly, scared.

Two lovely guardian angels came to my rescue. My friend Dana, whose father is a dentist did a huge amount of research to find me an appropriate orthodontist who I could trust in the city to get a second opinion, and a wonderful coworker who also wore braces as an adult a few years ago. When I told her what had happened with my doctor, her eyes went black with rage. She referred her orthodontist--and I must say she has gorgeous teeth.

I saw both these orthodontists on Thursday, which exhausted me. At 8am in the morning I met with a very posh Park Avenue orthodontist who had a very sleek and high tech office. Lovely people. I told him what had happened with my present orthodontist (bursting into tears as I told the story) and he apologized "on behalf of the profession" for the way my orthodontist treated me. After a surprisingly thorough examination, he gave me three options: 1) surgery 2) widening space in my mouth and inserting four implants, and 3) torquing my roots so that they are straight instead of pointing backwards. He said that treatment would probably be another two years.

I did not like any of these options.

I went to orthodontist #2 who I liked immediately. Though he gave me a surprisingly short examination he seemed to understand where I'm coming from. He also said that surgery is an option, but "one that I'm sure you don't want to do." I assured him that he was right. He told me that my teeth are far from perfect, but that we can make them livable--and that it would take about a year. At this rate, I just want to chew. I want my teeth to fit right together and to stop making my skull hurt. He seemed genuinely concerned about me, which shockingly, is a very new feeling to me with regard to these braces.

I have found all of this incredibly draining and extremely upsetting. I've cried more this week than I can remember in recent memory.

So, this is where we are. I'm having new diagnostics taken in a few days so that I can figure out what my next step should be.

Let's just say, this piece of dead wood is on fire.