A reminder that hurt begs for healing

The warm blanket in the dental chair relaxed me.

I’ve gone to the same dental practice for over 30 years.

My dental chart is so thick and heavy that it takes two staff members to lug it from room to room.

I think my chart is labeled Dental Wimp.

As I tried to relax under the blanket last week, my mind flashed back 22 years.

That summer, I suffered from sudden onset sciatic pain.

My orthopedist prescribed physical therapy, which helped a little. But the pain still coursed through my lower back, down my right leg, and into the arch of my foot.

I did OK standing, but sitting was an ordeal.

So, when I edged into the dental chair that summer, the pain turned up a notch.

“This chair really hurts my back,” I told the dental hygienist as she slipped a dental bib around my neck.

“I noticed an empty room down the hall,” I said. “Could you clean my teeth in the other room? I know the chair’s better in there.”

“All our chairs are the same,” she said.

“No, they’re not,” I snapped. “I know you have a chair that’s just right,” I said, morphing into Goldilocks.

“This one is killing my back.”

“What’s wrong with your back?” she asked.

As I told her of weeks of trying to soldier on with pain during that hot summer, I burst into tears.

The hygienist listened, and I unearthed the hurt behind my irritability.

I don’t remember how the rest of the visit went, but I called my orthopedic surgeon the next day.

“My sciatica is getting unbearable. If you can’t help me with this pain, you’ll have to take me behind a barn and shoot me.” He ordered an MRI. A few days later, my doctor called at 8. am. “Have you had breakfast yet?” he asked.

“No.”

My doctor and I were on good terms, but we didn’t usually compare notes about our breakfasts, so his question seemed strange.

“Your MRI shows a herniated disc. I’d like to have our spine surgeon look at you this morning.”

By early afternoon, I was lying on a table as an anesthesiologist gave me a steroid injection in my lower back.

Within a few minutes, I was wheeled into a recovery area where my husband was waiting.

The pain had vanished. A staff member offered me fruit juice and some crackers, and I burst into tears again.

A nearby nurse shot a worried look at me. “What’s wrong?” “I’m so happy. The pain is gone.”

Now, 20 years later, the pain is a distant memory.

I think about my longago pain because our world is in pain.

Humanity seems at odds with itself. We can’t understand the anger on the other side of our political, religious, and cultural divides.

Granted, these are not easy times. And solutions aren’t easy.

But can’t we do better? Can we remind ourselves that hate generally comes from hurt?

And hurt begs for healing.

Can we heal instead of hate?

Can we use our hearts to heal?

This may seem like pie in the sky, but what choice do we have?

Readers, what do you think?