No pain no gain

Or: Four days, two continents, four dental procedures in a pear tree.

Location: Jinja, Uganda
Sunday, October 25, 10:00 pm
48 hours to takeoff

I leave for Norway to speak at Paranoia 2009 in 50 hours, and my tooth’s starting to bother me.

Location: Jinja, Uganda
Monday, October 26 10:00 am
36 hours to takeoff

The pain is intense. I head into our little town and find the dental clinic.

I explain the situation to the very kind receptionist then wait in the “lobby”. There are two “medical rooms” separated by curtains. The one on the right has pretty steady traffic. People walk in with a clean towel and minutes later they walk out with a bloody one. That’s the “pulling side”. My appointment in on the left. I’m called back and I’m relieved to see a dentist chair and some equipment that looked distinctly dental in nature. I explain that the toothache is up into my ear at this point and the pain is radiating up into my face. He pokes around but can’t figure out where things hurt. He explains that I have a filling that looks out of sorts and that it should be replaced. He turns his back, then turns back around. I think he has the dental probe. But it’s a drill, and before I know what’s happening he’s going at my tooth with the thing. I don’t want to flinch because it’s a drill. In my mouth.

But I hate dentists, and just as I was about to let him know my thoughts on the matter, he switches tools, pokes a bit then tells me he’ll see me in two weeks for a permanent filling. Dazed, I wander out into the lobby and the receptionist asks me for 20,000/= (about $10US).

Location: Jinja, Uganda
Monday, October 26 7:00 pm
27 hours to takeoff

The pain’s worse. I pray a little, then whimper a lot then take 800mg of Ibuprofen. Then try to sleep. It never really comes.

Location: Kampala, Uganda
Tuesday, October 27 10:00 am
12 hours to takeoff

The “Studio” looks like a resort.

Modern equipment, an XRAY machine, and spotless. There’s a copy of Wired on the table along with a Men’s Health and a Better Homes and Gardens. I’m feeling pretty good about this place. The coffee machine in the corners serves espresso. I’m in the right place. The doctor I made the appointment with is out, they tell me. I’ll see the <insert title of other guy>. I’m shuffled into the back and I’m impressed. There’s a cool Dell PC there and the equipment looks shiny, new and sharp. I’m actually happy to be in a dentists office. The pain is intense. The dental assistance probes around and can’t find the source of the pain. She takes an XRAY, and the <other guy> looks at the results on the PC.

“Looks OK to me,” he says. “Your teeth are fine.”

I give him a look reserved for people that try to lick me on the eyeball and manage an “Oh?”

“Based on your symptoms, this XRAY and the nature of the pain, I think you have a sinus infection.”

Based on the cleanliness of the equipment and the nice look of the official XRAY on the Dell, I buy it.

Location: Entebbe Airport, Uganda
Tuesday, October 27 1:00 pm
9 hours to takeoff

I’m on antibiotics and my spit tastes like Nasonex, but I’m feeling better (somehow) and that’s cool. I spend a few hours working on a thank-you video for Paraben.

Location: Entebbe Airport, Uganda
Tuesday, October 27 4:00 pm
6 hours to takeoff

Video’s done, and my tooth is throbbing. Not my sinus, which is up here (*pointing vaguely to my eyeball*) but my tooth, which is down here (*pointing exactly to left rear molar one*). This is a toothache. And now I know which one it is. And I can’t get to the dentist and back in time. I’m getting on an International flight with an unattended raging toothache. I email Lilli in Norway: “Line up a dentist. Please?” I don’t have pain meds (sinus infection, remember?) but I’m about to spray Nasonex in my right eye to distract my body from my tooth. I am praying harder. Funny how that happens as a universal last resort. I decide to do online check-in.

At least I’m gonna get a good seat on the flight.

Location: Entebbe Airport, Uganda
Tuesday, October 27 8:00 pm
2 hours to takeoff

I am in such ridiculous pain that I can’t even see straight. This is a Problem.

Location: Somewhere over Europe
Wednesday, October 28 05:00 am
2 hours to Amsterdam

I’m in a middle seat next to two really big people who have taken over my armrests. I picked this seat. I even looked it up on seatguru.com. In my delirium I picked a RED middle seat. My neighbors, like everyone else on the flight, are asleep. Soundly. I am humming songs that I made up. I am also pressing on places on my body that are soft and trying to find the button.

Location: Oslo, Norway
Wednesday, October 28 09:00 am
27 hours to presentation

The fabric in the seat in front of my has been dancing for an hour and a half. I know that when the blue speckled pin-stripey hands try to grab me, they are only trying to help me. I let them caress my face. My single-serving travel friends don’t know that I’m hallucinating. They pretend not to see me. They would have noticed if I flipped to plan B and jumped out the emergency exit at 30,000 feet. I have never been in this much pain in my life. Kidney stones were close but shorter.

Rune Haugnes is my ride. He’s wearing a yellow shirt. I pretend not to see him, and pretend to be interested in the floor when he calls my name the second time. We make small talk (I say “Mnnn” and “Nggg” repeatedly) and he tells me the dentist will see me in two hours. He doesn’t notice that I am ecstatic because dancing, jumping, laughing, smiling and breathing all hurt. So I just look at him and I think I drooled.

Location: “Colosseum” Health Center, Norway
Wednesday, October 28 12:00 am
24 hours to presentation

Rune drives me to his dentist, and waits patiently for me in the lobby. Merte Horn Larsen is like an angel with her high-powered shiny spinning implements  of (what I used to consider) death. She is pretty and funny, but she could have been a bile-spitting ogre and I would have thought she was wonderful. She bumped 2.5 patients to make room for me. She took the XRAY and showed me the infection. Right where it hurt. In that dark spot on the XRAY. It called for a root canal. She did it, then told said words that sounded like music: “Your pain will be gone”. I left her office after thanking her profusely with lots of spittle and an abundance of slurred adjectives.  I was numb. I was happy. I distinctly remember that I forget to say a prayer of thanks. Ah well, who needs God when you’ve got an angel dentist? I am a special kind of idiot sometimes.

Rune fronts me money for the dentist bill since the machine wouldn’t take the Hackers For Charity Visa, the only one I had (ironic, somehow–the machine not taking a hacker’s credit card). Rune was a God-send and was fast becoming a very good friend.

The afternoon is busy. Kevin (Mitnick) and I do some filming for the presentation the next day and things are generally good. I’m in good spirits, especially after Watchcom says they’ll pick up the several hundred dollar dentist bill.

Location: Felix Konferansesenter på Aker Brygge Oslo, Norway
Wednesday, October 28 6:00 pm
18 hours to presentation

The numb is gone. The pain is back, and my angel has gone home for the night. The Internet and the other dentists at Merete’s place tell me the pain is pretty normal post-op. I double up on painkillers, tell Rune I need to head to my room and start to pray again. I end up talking to Kevin in the lobby until about 3am. I’m genuinely enjoying catching up with him. We’ve spent way too many years chatting in passing. I was in very intense pain, but I wasn’t really tired.

Location: My hotel lobby, Oslo Norway
Wednesday, October 29 05:30 am
6.5 hours to presentation

I’ve tossed and turned for about two hours. My insides are trembling and I’m in crazy pain. I wonder if the painkillers contain caffeine. I check the Internet. I’ve been taking Tylenol and Ibuprofen. THESE ARE PRESCRIPTION PAINKILLERS?

Location: Felix Konferansesenter på Aker Brygge Oslo, Norway
Thursday, October 29 12:00 pm
0 hours to presentation

I am in so much pain I feel like I’m going to vomit all over myself. I can hardly see straight. My head is pounding. My world is a blur. Rune’s made me another dentist appointment, but it’s not for another three hours.

I give the talk (not AT ALL my best, I’m sorry to say) then talk to the press and shake some hands. I have some great conversations and only hope the people I met email me, because I won’t remember any of this.

Location: “Colosseum” Health Center, Norway
Thursday, October 29 3:00 pm
“There are fouler things…”

Rune drives me again, and waits in the lobby. He has been such an incredible help, and I found him to be one of the most genuinely nice people I’ve ever met. His time in Kenya (and time in Merete’s chair) gives us +1 to friendship.

Merete tells me I’m a rare case. The canal was causing pressure and the “filling” must be replaced with a liquid (which won’t compress in the plane, which is great). She redoes the canal (temporary cap made is easier) and towards the end of the procedure I get a shooting pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt. I’m thinking about lots of things in that moment (my friend Kevin knows what I mean) and I think about dwarves and how they really dug too deeply when they dug the Mines of Moria in my face, and then something.. happens. Like a good thing. Something feels OK. Merete tells me she “knows” (doctors don’t say “sorry”, that’s bad form) and tells me it has to drain. That’s all good stuff.

Merete’s husband calls looking for her (she’s already really late) and as we finish up, I remember distinctly thinking that I’ll see her again. But not in Norway. Perhaps in Uganda. I don’t know why I feel that, but I do. She has an incredibly generous and compassionate spirit and she’s got an incredible gift for her work. I thank her profusely, and we go to pick up “real” pain meds.

Location: Cool restaurant, Osla Norway
Thursday, October 29 3:00 pm

I’m eating whale. Just eating would be fine, but I’m eating whale. Things are good. I get to meet a few new friends, and co-presenters (hello, Roberto and the Germany crue) and things are good. Then the numb is gone and I start to go downhill. I begin to make my exit strategy, since I have a 6:00am flight the next morning. Kevin and I get in deeper conversation than I expected (deeper than the Mines of Moria) and as Rune and I leave to get his wife (which I stranded because of my deep conversations) I am feeling pretty crappy.

At the airport, I say goodbye to my friend Rune (whom I’m also convinced I’ll see in Uganda) and head to my room. I medicate and sleep for 5 full hours. That makes 10 hours of sleep in three days.

Location: Somewhere over Europe
Friday, October 30 3:00 pm

I feel good. There is no pain. I am truly, honestly thankful. I remember to thank God. I’m glad I went to Norway, although it was a real challenge the hardest gig of my entire life. I think it was wasted on my friends and perhaps even the audience though. I feel like I let my friends down and the audience down, but there was a reason I went. There’s always a plan, and I don’t always understand it. I do know I wanted to bail several times, but for some reason I didn’t. I also know that I prayed for relief and it didn’t come right away. It came eventually, and I was meant to endure it. One day I may know why, but I don’t know now. I am OK with that, I guess.

Location: Njeru Uganda (home)
Saturday, October 31 3:00 pm

Last night’s drive from Entebbe was the last we’ll ever take. We literally almost died in a car accident. I kid you not. Two 40-foot cargo trucks barreling down a hill side-by-side. There was nowhere to go. We missed a head-on impact by inches. No damage, no collision, no one hurt. But Jen and I pray for two hours straight for protection. I have never been more scared in my life. Night driving is too dangerous. I will not subject my family to it again.

I am happy to be home. I missed my family so much. Life is good, with only the slightest damper: my jaw/tooth/ear/face is starting to throb ever so faintly and I think it might be the tooth the Jinja dentist drilled (the “wrong” one). It’s become quite distracting. I’m praying, holding my breath, taking my anti-biotics and popping Ibuprofen. In that order.

I don’t know why, but I feel different. Like bad things are sometimes OK. The Norway trip was really good but I can’t put my finger on why. Something happened. And maybe, one day I’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. So here’s to not sweating it too much.