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I am retired. Had to. Parkinson Disease. Thank goodness for The Good Men Project. I have a new outlook on life.
I have been writing for The Good Men Project since January 2016. It gives me something to do. It gives me something to think about.
I am a very ordinary man. I have had and continue to have very ordinary experiences. The Good Men Project is interested in that. That makes my life now and in the past more interesting to me.
Yesterday I got up and checked the Drudge Report. Drudge reported that Hugh Hefner was dead. I wrote about Hugh Hefner dying almost a year ago. This is not yet another example of the Mandela Effect. This is an example of me falling for a click-bait headline that wasn’t true then. It is true now.
I updated the article, including telling the story about my writing about my reflections on the death of Mr. Playboy too soon. I submitted the article for consideration for posting on The Good Men Project. Then I checked my email.
I read an email from my GMP editor Christa McDermott. She wanted to know if I wanted to write something about Hugh Hefner.
I had to get ready to go to the dentist. What were the men’s issues involved in going to the dentist? Maybe my trip to get a cavity filled would give me something to write about. I know. I was going to ask that no painkiller be used when the dentist filled the cavity that my trip to the dentist was about. Why did I want to do that?
I have had an ongoing concern I was going to have to cope with severe pain sooner or later. I wanted to be able to do it like a man. Seems like the dentist is a good place to practice.
Be careful if you feel like asking a retired man how he is doing. Since a retired man isn’t doing all he used to find important to do, namely working, he might get into telling you how he is feeling. This may take the form of telling you about his latest health problems and the details of their treatment.
For example, let me tell you about my teeth.
As a child, I was a victim of being targeted to consume refined sugar. It was and still is called candy. While the sugar fed the bacteria that also liked to eat my teeth I was treated with useless and toxic fluoride which was sold to public water suppliers as a means to prevent tooth decay.
Candy made many people rich so did filling holes in teeth with heavy metal amalgams. Some of that had left my teeth. Where it went I don’t like to think about. I just like to raise the question here as I write about it.
I like my dentist. She told me her plan was to do some drilling around and give me a temporary crown. If it looked like I would need a root cannel another dentist could do that.Then the temporary crown could be replaced by a permanent crown, which might last me until I was dead.
I inquired about the option discussed during my last visit of just trying to fill the cavity and forget about the crown. My dentist replied that we could try that.As she began to fiddle with her fingers inside of my mouth, she began to talk to my dental hygienist who was assisting with the procedure. She talked about her childhood and her daughter who was now in the First Grade. She talked about saving for her daughter’s college education. She didn’t talk about injecting me with an analgesic, she just did it.
As she began to fiddle with her fingers inside of my mouth, she began to talk to my dental hygienist who was assisting with the procedure. She talked about her childhood and her daughter who was now in the First Grade. She talked about saving for her daughter’s college education. She didn’t talk about injecting me with an analgesic, she just did it.
I knew that I should have talked about my interest in having no drugs for pain before having my dentists fingers in my mouth made it more difficult for me to do so. It just was that I spent too much time trying to figure out if I wanted pain management through willpower training that morning or not. I willingly let my dentist make that decision for me.
My dentist went on to tell the dental hygienist about a recent patient allowing her to take photographs of a dental implant restoration she had just done, so she could show colleagues the near-perfect work. She talked about her father being a dentist who wasn’t ready to retire because he wanted to accumulate wealth for his grandchildren rather than quit now and enjoy traveling.
In some ways, I wished my dentist had spent some time asking me how I was feeling. I had given into to getting pain medication and was coping with how it affected my swallowing. When I started to experience some shaking, which I attributed to my Parkinsons Disease, I did my best to suppress this by relaxing. Since my dentist demonstrated no apparent awareness of my distress I reassured myself I was doing a good job. I reasoned my dentist might have interfered with my coping process had she noticed I was having some trouble coping.
There was a time when it was thought women might usher in a popularity of traditionally female values of compassionate caregiving to the health professions. It didn’t seem to work out that way. My dentist was talking, as if I wasn’t there, about what she was getting out of her dentistry practice, was really fine with me.
My dentist used her skill to save me the cost of a crown. That is what I wanted most of all. If being treated like an object got my job done so be it.
My dentist told me that she was using a ceramic material instead of silver for the filing. She gave her opinion that this cheaper alternative was preferred not because of cost, but because in my case the death of the filling made it a better material to work with. I replied I was concerned I would have no precious metal investment to fall back on if the Bond Market crashed.
The articulation of this humorous response was complicated by my dental chair anxiety and the fingers in my mouth.
My dentist asked the hygienist, “What did he say?”
My hygienist repeated what I said. I am not sure that my dentist got it. Maybe she can use this line on a future patient.
After the dentist, it was time for a hike. I decided to pack a lunch. I was going to go to a State Park that I love. If I had been a dentist it might have been a National Park, but no matter. The planning what to bring had some of the drama of a more exotic expedition. I wanted to capture highlights of the journey so I packed my Canon PowerShot camera.
Highlights of my hike included discovering my camera battery was dead. No problem really, I had brought my Apple 4 cell phone. That has a camera.
To be a man can be to be in love with technology. My cell phone camera can do a lot of things. What I do best with it is point and push. I get some great, looks like it was Photoshopped, images that way. The best images I get are the ones that I frame before I use the camera. I guess I am the kind of man who is not too big on technology.
My hike included spots where I needed to crawl under fallen trees and hop rock to rock to avoid getting wet. I pick places where no one would hear me if I fall. No one nearby to help stop the bleeding. No one to tell me I shouldn’t go over there with my Parkinson’s Disease balance challenges. I enhance my own reality.
Although I don’t feel well most of my day on all of my days, I have adjusted. Storytelling for GMP has played a vital role in that adjustment.
As I conclude my hike, I look up with disgust into the chemical aerosol sprayed sky. I note the white rock outcroppings I so used to enjoy have gradually turned gray. I imagine here too is the work of the chemical trailers.
I sometimes wish I could distance myself from the great woes that have been inflicted upon our planet by forces unnatural by dismissing what I see as nothing more than the stuff of fake views discussed by conspiracy theorists. I just can’t.
I can distract myself from this angst, by writing for The Good Men Project. I wonder if there was anything about this ordinary day that I could write about.
Photo: Pixabay
