A much belated post, with more final reflections to come. This is a reflection written by Dunan about the several weeks of our life on the Hill, which have come to be known as “The Tooth Saga.” The format was as an e-mail to our CSA Members with the subject line “A Tale of My Tooth.”
Hello Bean Patchers,
As some of you know two weeks ago I had my tooth extracted. It was infected and had been bothering me slightly for nearly a year. Since the tooth was removed I have felt “myself” once again and more awake in mind and body.
Around a year ago or more, I noticed that I always chewed on the right side of my mouth. Shortly after I started to feel the tooth, and had to switch to chewing food on the other side of my mouth. I felt lead to ask for the Universe to heal me, and thus I did not seek out traditional Western treatment. I trusted early on that some alternative healing process would come along, but then with my crazy busy life at school I think I lost that belief. The slight pain would only occur when I chewed on it and would come and go, so I didn’t pay very much attention to it until a month ago. It started to hurt more, especially when I would lie down and rest. I knew I had to see a dentist. Three Thursdays ago (9/29) I saw the first dentist and so began a saga. He told me to go and get it pulled immediately and put me on penicillin. As chance had it I was not able to make it from Greenfield to Springfield in the hour and a half time frame I was given. This is good, because other dentists have told me that it would have been excruciating, although that night was extremely painful. The next morning I felt better, because the antibiotics were working, and Alice drove me for an early appointment with an oral surgeon in Brattleboro, where I was going to have an examination and potential extraction. The dentist was very pompous and told me to wait the weekend and think about whether I should get a root canal instead, I knew I did not want a root canal, but was unable to tell him that in the moment. It was a lesson, in learning when to speak. However, it also ended up being a gift because I did consider a root canal. A family friend told me about biological dentistry, and the root canals that they perform are much safer and cleaner in the long run. Biological dentistry is kind of like organic food, if one were to compare the two. Then we found a wonderful biological dentist practice called Groton Wellness, in Groton, MA, an hour and fifteen minutes away. They were very nice and explained why even they do not do root canals, because there is no way to keep out bacteria from a dead porous thing – so we took it out.
To sum it up, I am so thankful for the way things worked out, as they did for the best. I am ready to be and continue doing what I truly want to be doing and what makes me feel alive. I have learned to listen to my body. And after the whole experience, another lesson was that I wanted the Universe (God, greater power, Creator, etc.) to heal me and then it did. It was in that dentist, and I was excluding dentistry as being part of our Universe when it truly is.
(Today, two weeks after my oral surgery I am returning to Groton Wellness to get my sutures taken out!)
This has lead me to reflect on: Are you living your truth? And if not, you can begin living that truth now or wait (like me) until the Universe “puts you through it” to make you realize. I say, let’s live it now!