As you read this on Tuesday morning, I will be sitting in the dentist’s chair getting a tooth pulled. At some point during the extraction I will think to myself, “How did I get here?”
Life is a series of incidents strung together. Connected by chance or design, the events we experience become vital pieces of our own personal timelines that lead us to this exact moment. One change and everything would be different.
And so it was for my tooth. My story began with a Christmas basketball game.
I tore the cartilage in two knees.
That led to surgery.
That led to a doctor telling me I needed a knee replacement.
That led to a teeth cleaning (you need clean teeth to avoid infecting a new knee).
That led to a referral to see a periodontist for a “deep cleaning”.
That led to an announcement that one of my teeth had to be removed.
That led to me sitting in a dentist’s chair, having a piece of my body that has been with me for half a century ripped out of my jaw.
One thing leads to another, which leads to another.
My summer will include:
A teeth cleaning
A “deep cleaning” by a periodontist
A tooth extraction
A total knee replacement
Prolonged physical therapy
My wife has dubbed this Jeff’s Summer of Pain.
And it all started with basketball.
I hate basketball.
