The two parts to my essay are (a) physical pain and (b)
Welstschmerz.
(a)
Back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s,
I was having trouble with my four wisdom teeth. The wisdom tooth pressing up
against its neighboring tooth caused extreme pain. The first wisdom tooth
extraction (Upper right) went rather well. A dentist got it out. The second
wisdom tooth (lower right) was more complicated so I had to go to Flushing
Hospital.
The
wisdom tooth resisted being extracted by the dental surgeon’s first attempt,
and he used a reasonably sized pliers. But as the wisdom tooth resisted, the
pain increased dramatically, and the dental surgeon kept choosing larger and
larger pliers. The last pair of pliers was quite enormous and resembled a
medieval torture instrument. For about a week after that, I just stayed drunk,
and I rinsed my mouth with whisky which is not only a good antiseptic, it
helped deaden the pain.
A
month or two after that, my two left wisdom teeth were pressing up against
their neighboring teeth. The pain was excruciating. So I chose an oral surgeon
or rather an oral surgery team.
I
lay down on a gurney, they gave me phenobarbital, and I went into a semi-dream
state, but I was still awake, and I was aware of the surgeon and the three or
four nurses assisting him who were hovering over me. They extracted both wisdom
teeth with surgery rather than yanking them out with pliers. Everything went
smoothly, I felt no pain, and the subsequent recuperation period had some pain
but it was minimal.
So,
if you need to have more than one tooth extracted at a time, choose oral
surgery. Phenobarbital was wonderful. You get anesthetized, but your body does
not feel threatened as with ether or other anesthesias. And you are still
actually awake.
(b)
The other type of pain I have experienced
is Weltschmerz or “World pain,”
defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “sentimental pessimism or melancholy over
the state of the world”:
(1)
JFK got assassinated. That trauma was
painful, but we discussed that already.
(2)
The twin towers came down on 9/11/2001.
But of course we already discussed that trauma as well.
(3)
President Nixon ordered the invasion of
Cambodia on May 8, 1970. I remember the protests in this country were swift and
enormous. I tried to go to a protest demonstration in Washington, D. C., but
there were just too many protesters. Our bus had to stop somewhere in the
outskirts of Washington, D. C., so we just sat there; some of the passengers
had guitars so we made the best of it by singing peace songs and Beatles’
songs. It was fun. But the invasion itself was traumatic and caused a lot of
people Weltschmerz.
(4)
January 30, 1968 was the date of the Tet
Offensive. That was when we realized that, actually the Communists whooped us. On
April 30, 1975, the U. S. withdrew from Vietnam. Pictures of the “fall” of
Saigon were quite traumatic. I felt more Weltschmerz.
(5)
The death of our two friends, Steve and
Randy.
On
a less serious note, the French language has two interesting tongue twisters,
that is le vire-langue (rarely used):
(a)
Ton thé, t’ôte-t-il ta toux? Does
your tea get rid of your cough?
(b)
La reine Didon dîna, dit-on, d’un dos dodu d’un dodu
dindon. The Queen of Carthage dined, they say, on the fat back
of a fat turkey.
Of
course, Dido (Didon) was not actually a queen, she was a princess, though she
did run ancient Carthage.
© 14 Sep 2017
About the Author
I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City,
Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker
for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally
impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA's.
I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few
interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I
graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.
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