Have you heard of the profession, “endodontist” before? I have not, until very recently. After suffering for a couple of decades from chronic illness, I have come to realise it is truly somewhat a blessing to not be in the know, especially when it comes to medical terms. There are reasons why we get to learn about these things.
That is also utterly why I am a lot more covid cautious and health conscious than the average person. I mean, why would I care about my sleep, diet, exercise, unless I have reasons to? Everybody thinks they can sleep at 4am and wake up at 8am until they cannot. That they can eat whatever they want. Nobody wants to be wearing a n95 mask and live in fear of getting infected by a virus, seriously – not even the zerocovid community. Do we not want to live our lives? Do we not want to move on? Trust me, 99% of us do. Except we would rather live a much more limited life right now rather than to potentially lose everything we have. Why are we so afraid of this potential?
Because many of us have lost it once before. I have had. Wearing a n95 mask that squeezes my face into a tight bunch and leaves enduring marks later, and being subjected to ridicule – I would very much prefer that than to lose my ability to even get out of bed. Lying in bed isn’t even that bad compared to the amount of piercing pain and nausea I have had to endure during my migraines.
It turns out my root canal has failed, much to my disappointment and fear. Fear of both going to the dentist and risking covid exposure again. After wearing a mask everywhere to protect my respiratory system it feels really scary to open my mouth wide open during an hour long procedure with no information about the air quality.
I have since learnt albeit unwillingly that there are specialists who perform root canals. I was in so much pain when I first got to the dentist (again very unwillingly and with much fear) that when she said I needed a root canal I didn’t hesitate much. It didn’t occur to me I should research more about it. There wasn’t a doubt that it would be unsuccessful. I had a root canal in the US once, and it went without a hitch.
The original dentist prescribed me some antibiotics and offered to retreat the root canal after the swelling had subsided. But after a few hours of mulling over it I decided I just wanted to give myself the best shot possible at recovery, so I chose to seek retreatment at an endodontist.
Thanks to reddit I learnt that apart from going through specialist training for a few years, they have powerful microscopes and they perform the procedure multiple times a day versus a dentist who may have a few a week. That sort of experience and muscle memory cannot be easily matched. I believe in the brain’s capacity to form a deep reservoir of knowledge and pattern recognition.
I had to go through the whole slog of cold-messaging google search results to see if there are endodontists that are willing to accommodate to my request for n95 masking, and also for the first slot in the morning for the air to be as uncontaminated as possible. I am almost always treated as a hypochondriac, so it is an unpleasant experience. I had to mentally prepare myself for a negative outcome – that perhaps I would have to take some covid exposure risk.
How likely that I would be infected at the dentist? I have read so many horror stories of people who diligently mask everywhere only to get covid at a medical appointment. 40% of transmission is asymptomatic, so it is not safe just because someone is not visibly sick. Surgical masks are only partially effective.
Thankfully, within my first 6 messages, there were at least 2 who responded that they were willing to accommodate me with zero resistance. It made my week, if not month, because it restored some of my faith in humanity. For me, it is not about whether they believe in my level of precautions – I no longer have faith in medical professionals’ scientific knowledge – it is whether they believe in making their patient as psychologically safe as possible. Ultimately being unwilling to be physically uncomfortable for an hour or so means they place their own individual comfort and ease above our welfare.
What do they value: being comfortable, or being compassionate?
At the endodontist even the receptionist was donned in a n95 (not my requirement). Apparently the endodontist requested them to do so. Air purifiers were running in both the waiting area and in the surgery room. The co2 hovered around 700+ppm, which demonstrates some level of filtration – better than many places.
I was on the verge of giving up on seeking an endodontist who was willing to accommodate, because it would clearly limit my pool of options, and therefore limit my chances of recovery. Psychological stamina is required to be persistent and trying, and I have very little of it. Thankfully my partner convinced me to keep at it. I could re-evaluate my options again if there were truly none.
I am so glad my partner kept me going. I think it is important to be philosophically aligned with the person who is treating us, if possible. Sometimes it can be a long journey, and we don’t want to be exhausted just being uncomfortable and in conflict with them.
I guess I have always naively assumed that medical professionals have a baseline compassion, but my chronic illness and the pandemic have taught me otherwise. Compassion is a very rare quality, condescension and being dismissive of our concerns are the norm.
I have also always thought that compassion is an emotional quality, but in recent times I think of it as an intellectual quality. We don’t have to feel for the other, we can simply intellectually believe in doing what is right for the person. In the context of medicine, if it improves the patient’s outcomes – why not?
But in this exhausting world, every individual has finite resources to cope. Understanding this makes me have even more gratitude for the accommodations I have been given by both my endodontist and dentist. I am under no illusions that they believed in why I needed those accommodations, but I acknowledge their effort in providing a psychologically safe environment for me.
I’ve been thinking a lot of about how I want to live in a world that is crumbling. What are the blog posts I would like to write. What is the kind of website I want to upkeep. What do I want to express, and embody? There is always a certain level of self-consciousness. Who wants to read about a failed root canal? And here I am, writing about my fears and exhaustion with covid yet again.
But at the core, this website has always been about my self, and for my self. Having an audience is a bonus. The self-consciousness exists precisely because nobody else is writing about these things. People mostly prefer to read about optimistic and positive things, and I am a self-professed doomer and wet-blanket.
But personally it is upsetting for me that there are not many people are writing about these things. Because it is important to acknowledge that they exist. Even if nobody else would do so, I want at least acknowledge I exist, and my feelings are valid.