T-Pain

My face has been a source of severe frustration lately... and not just because of the reflection in the mirror.

A couple of months ago, I started feeling some pain in the left side of my face. It would migrate from my lower teeth into my upper jaw, toward my ear and inevitably into my temple. Some days it would just be a minor nuisance but others would find me wincing in pain throughout the day.

Since I'm a woman, nobody really knew about it. I kept it quiet and went about my daily business as if nothing was wrong. Incidentally, during that time, my husband strained his back moving a piece of furniture and I was reminded about it for days while he was convinced he was bound for his deathbed any moment.

Since I'm generally a pretty healthy horse (not so much as a cold in the last three years!), I figured whatever it was would ride its course and then leave me alone. I was too busy to get sick and since things like this obviously happen only when it's convenient, I was certain I was going to be just fine. Imagine my sheer annoyance when several weeks after it began, the pain not only didn't go away and leave me alone, it got exponentially worse.

What the what?!

Suddenly I was popping ibuprofen like it was pez candy and curling up in the fetal position for hours at a time. The pain was still resonating all over the left side of my face, making me feel like Arnold in The Terminator. Any minute, it seemed my skin was going to peel back off my skull to reveal something hideous (like The Terminator half, not the Arnold half).

With a potential PR opportunity in a half-marathon coming up quickly, I decided to do something crazy: I went to see a doctor. I pointed out all my boo-boos; he looked up my nose. Together, we determined it was a bad sinus infection. He sent me off with a prescription for a super-potency, high-octane augmented antiobiotic guaranteed to clear up the sinus infection, fix my face and grow back my toenails in no time. Immediately after returning home from the pharmacy, I threw back the first pill and went about my normal business.

A week later, after spending the night visiting the bathroom over and over again because the meds were making me so sick while my face still pounded in agony, I resigned myself to calling the dentist. I knew it was one of my options in the first place but figured I'd start inexpensively and work my way up as needed.

Thankfully, my dentist was able to squeeze me in that same day. I plopped down in the chair and pointed to the tooth that seemed to be hurting the most. That's when I got a root canal.

Turns out the root system underneath my molar was so badly infected it was causing pain throughout my whole face. As opposed to learning I had just days to live, that was nice to hear.

I can't say the root canal was horrible; in fact, it really wasn't a whole lot worse than getting a cavity filled. I think that's because I was on the laughing gas, which I happen to believe is almost as good as dying in my sleep and going to heaven. (I grew up in a very conservative community so I was never really exposed to alcohol or drugs. My first time on laughing gas I was riding rollercoasters in the sky and recounting all the classic knock-knock jokes in my head. I may have even told the doctor a few of them while he was drilling.)

I've got to go back next week to have the root canal finished. Apparently, the doctor only had time to do half of it, which seems a little odd. Would an OB/GYN only have time to deliver half a baby? In any case, I'm stuck in a little bit of limbo until that happens. Doc predicted I'd have some soreness the next couple of days but then promised I'd start feeling better. Hopefully the feeling better part will come just in time for my race on Saturday morning. My training has been going really well and I think I've got a good shot at snagging that half-marathon PR I've been coveting for so long. I don't want to have to blame missing it on a bum tooth, although I most definitely will if I fall short.

Then again, maybe I'll just sneak some of the happy gas and ride a rollercoaster in the sky on my way to a guaranteed PR while I distract everyone I pass in my wake with knock-knock jokes.

I think I just found myself a race strategy.

Dropping Like Flies

As much as I expect it to happen, it's always a bit traumatic to lose a toenail. That moment when the clippers nick the skin just under the nail to release a geyser of trapped blood never fails to make me gasp out loud. Or even better, that moment when the nail finally pops loose and I can actually peer underneath it if I bend my neck and contort my head just right.

This is becoming way too regular a ritual for me.

It wouldn't be so bad if it were the smaller nails, the ones that are easy to disguise with a little nail polish. No, I have to lose my big toenails-- the ones that require a gallon of polish to cover up. I'm not sure why I even bother. It almost seems like an amputee sporting a patent leather dress shoe on his stump, as blatantly obvious as it is. I guess I'm just not quite at the point of embracing my toenailess feet for all the world to see and appreciate.

It does make me wonder, though. How much money could Paula Radcliffe score on her lost toenails if she listed them on eBay? Forget winning marathons. Could Deena Kastor become independently wealthy on CraigsList? And then there's Kara Goucher. That girl is what you call hawt. I shudder to think what a dude with a foot fetish would do if he got his hands on a few of her disposed toenails.

Unfortunately, until I start winning major city marathons, my lost toenails are more or less useless. It's too bad, really. They look so pretty all decked out in shades of rosy hues as I pry them off my feet... again.

Selective Memory

The last time I gave birth to a human baby (as opposed to a non-human one, which is documented on my other blog) was a little more than nine years ago. I'd spent months preparing for the event. I read entire books on pregnancy and childbirth and obsessively researched the subject on the internet, googling terms I'd be embarrassed to say out loud in the presence of mixed company (let's face it: episiotomies and hemorrhoids aren't things you bring up over potato salad at the neighborhood barbecue). I ate, whether I was hungry or not and savored every single morsel I put in my mouth. I slept, sometimes for eleven or twelve hours at night and then lied down for a nap three hours later. My body became a constant source of frustration. Will my ankles ever stop swelling? Could my belly get any bigger? I stressed over numbers. How many weeks? How many diameters? And finally, when the big day arrived, I set aside all my pride for several hours while I went about the slow and grueling process of turning myself inside out. It wasn't pretty. I wailed in pain, gnashed my teeth, barked at strangers and cursed the day I ever thought birthing a baby was a grand idea. But when the carnage was over, I held in my arms something extraordinary. And just like that, in an instant of time, I forgot all the pain, misery and agony it took to get to that point. Life was good. I was a mother again.

The last time I ran a marathon was a little more than one year ago. I spent months preparing for the event. I read entire books on running marathons and obsessively researched the subject on the internet, googling terms I'd be embarrassed to say out loud in the presence of mixed company (let's face it: fartleks and crotch chafing aren't things you bring up over the cash register at WalMart). I ate, whether I was hungry or not and savored every single morsel I put in my mouth. I slept, sometimes for eleven or twelve hours at night and then lied down for a nap three hours later. My body became a constant source of frustration. Will I ever stop losing my toenails? Could my thighs get any bigger? I stressed over numbers. How many miles? How many repeats? And finally, when the big day finally arrived, I set aside all my pride for several hours while I went about the slow and grueling process of turning myself inside out. It wasn't pretty. I wailed in pain, gnashed my teeth, barked at strangers and cursed the day I ever thought running a marathon was a grand idea. But when the carnage was over, I wore around my neck something extraordinary. And just like that, in an instant of time, I forgot all the pain, misery and agony it took to get to that point. Life was good. I was a marathoner again.

Marathon #4 is on September's calendar. Let the carnage and bundle of joy begin.