Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
Alice nearly did that, drown in her tears, when she had that shit day being too big then too small…she just couldn’t win. Sobbing in a Dr’s office was not the way I intended to spend my Thursday. Admittedly I am a little bit of a crier, late night B grade movies and shit sitcoms get me and happy stuff and other peoples hurt, but it had been a while since real physical pain had caused me to weep.
The pain in my tooth, head, jaw and face was excruciating, unmanageable and after 24 hours of ‘bearing’ with the worst of it, it got worser. Alone on the coach I howled, like a wounded dog, I took a photo of myself on my phone to prove how bad I looked for myself and others for later, when I looked great again.
Walking to the local GP taking deep breaths through my nose and through the pain, scared that he wouldn’t believe me, a bit annoyed at myself, thoughts of ‘I have a high threshold for pain…I birthed two babies drug free for fucks sake’ then switched to fear that the drugs wouldn’t work quickly and also really really fucking annoyed that if it didn’t subside in two days I wouldn’t get to the Gunnas writing class and that would be some kind of irony, that it wasn’t me bailing out on ‘Gunnas’ a woulda shoulda coulda procrastination writers course or even me paying and not turning up and just generally procrastifucking my way through my 30’s, it would be my fucking tooth, the tooth that has needed to be out of my head for four months and I procrastinate and then go and get it out last week…for fucks sake. It was an intense 20 minute walk and conflicting inner monologue.
Dr immediately saw my distress and instead of the casual Australian way of greeting me with a ‘How are you today?’ and the casual polite auto-pilot Australian response ‘Good thanks how are you?’ we cut the bullshit and he said ‘So not feeling well?’ and I said ‘Noooo’ and sobbing ensued.
‘Iiiiitttt really hhhuurrtsss…I got my wisdom tooth out last Fffffriday and it was better… then it wasn’t and now ittss ssoooo bad and I have these drugs but they are not working’
Then as the qualified professional he is he kicked in and did his job… prescribed some heavy duty shit…
‘Take this slow release one on top of the codeine its blah bah blah and slow release anti-inflammatory on top of the antibiotics the Dentist gave you and it will get better.’
Me, grateful but also wanting a pretty immediate result childishly responded ‘Buutt it hurts now…’ he then pat me, a little awkwardly on the shoulder like those memes you see of people that don’t like human contact…there there silly lady, or like a robot stimulating what human comfort is, but it did help.
Still a few hours off real relief I left the Dr with paper that I could give another professional person who would give me drugs…
The tears continued, they were there when husband, beautiful, dependable, stoic husband, picked me up at the chemist and against his usual wait in the car approach, sensing the gravity of the situation, came into the chemist, that made me happy and weepy, he didn’t hug me or pat me awkwardly like the Dr but he was there and he cared and I was grateful. Professional Pharmacist man told me some stuff about the drugs I didn’t listen to and said ‘you must be in a lot of pain’ I assume due to the heavy shit he was giving me and I told him ‘yeah and I had two drug free births and that was less painful’ like a wanker and like he cared, he nodded and pretended to, it was true though, at that point and even on reflection I’d choose the combined hours of childbirth pain over the week of pain and intensity I was in the middle of at that moment.
The tears continued as I ate the ham and cheese danish and boston bun from Bakers Delight, pulling off the crunchy bits (to avoid tooth agitation) and breaking it up into small pieces to put into the pocket of the left side of my mouth that wasn’t throbbing with …pain…pain…pain…you have to eat before the drugs…take with food ..or what? I dunno what happens might read the packet one day.
All the drugs out on the kitchen table trying to remember what both the Dr and the pharmacist said, ‘take this one with food, and this one every 12 hours and this one every 24 hours and this one every 8 hours and two of these every 6 hours’ only if needed…fuck me, I might accidently overdose here, how the fuck is a dizzy underfed, in dramatic pain, sobbing person meant to remember all of that. Stoic husband stands silently behind me like a body guardian angel making sure I don’t OD…good one mate.
May cause drowsiness…5 minutes later…fully clothed, dressing gown over clothes, on the coach 4:30…dozing off…pain subsiding a little… with some relief I snooze, not deep satisfying sleep, just that half awake half aware but hibernating like your computer, one tap and you’re back on. It wasn’t until an extra codeine kicker later that night that the true relief came and after my children looked after me. My 8 year old daughter literally put me to bed after me weeping on the coach to her about how much I love her and my family and I’m so grateful to have everyone…high as a fucking kite… Morning brings sweet relief, after a week I was really on the mend and the realisation that I would make the Gunna’s Masterclass yay!
But…the tears continued. Still a bit fragile, still a day of work to go but I’ll get there, I will and I’ll eat and listen and talk and be inspired and write and be amazing. Saturday comes and Intros over with the Gunnas Masterclass Daylesford, coffee orders, nerves onto first exercise the ‘ice breaker’ I’m great at this shit 12 years in corporate easy peasy…enter Barbara to my right, five fucking minutes into the ‘get to know you’ and Barbara and I are letting little streams of tears trickle down our cheeks, we know why we are here…we just didn’t expect to be seated next to someone that ‘get’s it’ and that procrastifuckinates the same… that’s another story. But so many things have started or triggered my tears over the years the good, bad, scary, beautiful and you know what, I’m going to start listening to the tears more and see what they are telling me. So what’s the moral of this story? Get your fucking wisdom teeth out and if the tears are there…maybe you’re ready to write…right?
Dedicated to Barbara, Dev and the Gorgeous Gunna’s… oh fuck it I’m teary again.