If anesthesia is its own religion then suffering must be its pilgrimage.
My first root canal ... at 42 years old I consider it something of a rite of passage ... like my first gray hair several years ago.
Seven days of agony, held at arm's reach by a steady diet of pain killers and abject stoicism.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best ... "All undeserved suffering is redemptive."
I am a pious astronaut cast adrift.
Amid the eerie ambient sounds of the Stars of the Lid "Dust Breeding (1.316)+ playing on my Ipod I find myself marooned in a comfortable nebula, illuminated by a warm, far distant supernova so bright that even my closed eyelids can't dampen its searing brilliance. My internal gyro is useless as I slowly spin on my central axis and do slow backwards flips in the dental chair. I am suspended upon a mixture of gas and chemicals which deaden all pain and expand my consciousness, putting me straight into a mindset to fully understand the lyrics to Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb."
Just a little pin prick and there'll be no more "Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggghh."
Zero signal.
Faithless.
I am lost.
