My younger son’s soul seems to have volunteered to contribute stories around teeth for this blog. When he was little, he had this stubborn baby tooth which would not leave and which led to two teeth growing in the same place. It mirrored my clinging to my former privacy.
Now he is 17 years old and in the beginning of March 2022, he had his wisdom teeth removed. All four of them at once. With local anesthesia only.
In the fall of 2021, we had the dentist do an X-ray of the wisdom teeth to find out whether they would cause trouble. And even though they looked benignly straight and not tilted, there was too little space for them. So, we decided that they had to be removed.
My son got all tensed up and anxious about the whole thing. No matter how often I told him that he would not feel anything when he got the local anesthesia and that the surgery would not take long, he felt worry and anxiety.
Soothing mint
Then in December 2021, we had a preparatory visit at the oral surgeons’s office, and right before that appointment outside where we parked our bikes, I saw a mint colored bike. I told my son, “Mint is the color my guides send me when they want to say something soothing and give me the message to calm down. So, I guess that means you should not worry. All will be fine.”
The next day, my son told me, “Mom, I was the first one in the classroom this morning, waiting there alone for the others to arrive. And then the first classmate arrived and guess what he was wearing. A mint-colored sweater. I had to think back to yesterday and the mint-colored bike. I felt soothed.”
We scheduled the surgery for the next school vacation so that my son would be able to recover at home and not have to visit school right away. Due to that and because the doctor came in only it at certain times during the week, the date of the surgery ended up on my birthday. Well, that was not the nicest way to spend a birthday. But never mind, I’d have to deal with it.
A comforting message
In January 2022 during a general physical check-up (which had nothing to do with the wisdom teeths), my son had his blood drawn from his arm. In order to distract my son from his anxiety, the nurse who drew the blood asked him to tell her a bit about which school he went to and my son did his best to answer.
After the procedure was over, I said, “That was a good method to distract you from your anxiety. But during your upcoming wisdom teeth removal, this won’t work because you cannot talk when you have your mouth open.”
The nurse heard that and started to tell us about her own wisdom teeth removal, “Oh, I had that too, recently, and it wasn’t horrible at all. In the evening, I was already able to eat again. No need to worry.”
I thought that was very nice from the universe to send us someone before the surgery to give us a comforting message.
And also, I was reminded that I had almost cancelled that check-up appointment because I wasn’t sure whether it was really necessary and I couldn’t find out whether our public health insurance would cover this particular one or whether I would end up having to pay at least part of the costs. So, after some unsuccessful back and forth between me, the general practitioner’s office, and the health insurance, I tried to call and cancel the appointment for the general check-up. However, mysteriously their phone line was busy all the time and I couldn’t get through. Now I knew the reason.
The cat
In March 2022, on the day of the surgery, we left the house in the morning to walk to the oral surgeon’s office. The remarkable thing was that the young reddish cat from our neighbors across the street had sat on our doormat just outside of our front door for several hours before we left. She never did that before. And when we went out, she walked with us for one block. It was unusual. As if this was another sign of comfort that someone was there to accompany us during this ordeal.
Purple
After the young cat had left, the next unusual thing we saw was a deep purple chiffon cloth on a bush in a front yard. As if someone lost it there. Then my son found a purple coin-shaped metallic plastic thing on the sidewalk. These things did not look like coincidences but like signs.
We arrived at the surgeon’s office. And just before the surgery, he was quite nervous and tense. The worst thing about the whole procedure were the eight injections for the local anesthesia. Pale in the face and shaking, he grabbed my hand tightly for comfort after the numbing injections. But soon afterwards, I had to leave the operating room. Accompanying persons were not allowed to be present during the surgery.
So, I sat outside and waited, and after only 30 minutes the whole thing was over. All four teeth removed in whole. None of them had to be cut in pieces. And all went well, thank goodness. We called my husband to take us home with the car.
At home, we were able to stop the bleeding with a single dose of Arnica 200c (- at occasions like these, I feel so grateful that I have learned something about homeopathy even though it took rheumatoid arthritis to get me to learn this).
And after about 8 hours, the effects of the local anesthesia were gone and my son was able to eat his first meal again. What a relief!
Spiritual Awakening 