Somewhere in the middle part of my 60s a tooth went bad in the back of my jaw. I’d gone to some sketchy dentists right after my wife died and the first dentist I visited didn’t explain clearly that my insurance wouldn’t cover most of my “catchup” work after ignoring dental needs due to my wife’s ongoing medical costs and my pursuant parade in and out of jobs as companies fired me for having a wife with cancer.

The bill for the first round of dental work at a practice ironically called “Sunrise” shot past $6,000, which I was forced to pay out of pocket. After that, I proceeded more cautiously in choosing dentists but hit a dental tarsnake when a molar went bad and I needed a root canal.

I recall that appointment lasting an hour as the kind but seemingly nervous dentist dug around inside the tooth while her assistant apologized, dabbing at the blood and saliva flowing from the side of my mouth, and even held my hand once, saying, “Be over soon.”

That’s the tooth that went super toxic ten years later. By then I’d been working with a regular dentist, a fellow Rotary Club member from years ago, who racked up his own set of bills for me clanging around inside my mouth. None of it was pretty, and when I showed up on July 2, he opened up the crown, poked deep into the dead tooth, and found an infection growing at the base. He tapped around a bit, sealed it back up, and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t really deal with this; we’re going away for the 4th of July weekend.”

At that point, I panicked. My jaw was hurting, and my dentist told me to go away. I contacted my wife’s dentist, who also dug around inside the tooth and proclaimed, “This is beyond my purview. But I know just the guy you need to see.”

That same day, I drove to see a root canal specialist. Now, the key factor in all of this was insurance. After my job scrambles I’d decided to get on my wife’s plan, so I did have dental coverage. It wasn’t necessarily a great dental plan, but at least I would get what I needed done.

If you’ve never visited a dental genius, then I have a fact for you. They do exist. The endodontist I saw specialized in dental surgery and root canal work. He worked on my tooth without stress or distraction. I sensed how deep he’d gone into the tooth by the pressure, but the novocaine worked and he wrapped up confidently in just ten minutes. He’d cleaned out the tooth completely, but told me, “This is not a good tooth. I’m prescribing antibiotics to fight the infection. But if this doesn’t work, there’s only one alternative.”

I mumbled through cotton and gauze. “Phull itfth?

“Yes,” the endo guy confirmed. “We’ll have to pull it.” I took the drugs as prescribed but my face was swelling from the infection. A week went by and we kept in contact. Another few days and I was getting nervous. The pain was awful when I sat still on the couch sipping tea. Eating was uncomfortable. I only felt good out riding, running, or swimming. The bloodflow cleared my head but the cumulative effects of ibuprofen on my kidneys was not good. I stopped during one run because my lower back hurt. Realizing it was not a muscle ache but my kidneys throbbing, I decided to be more cautious with the meds.

Finally, after two weeks, still in pain, I trekked back over to the endodontist who took one look in my mouth, gave me a number for an oral surgeon, and urged, “Don’t waste time. This is serious stuff. Sometimes it’s not worth trying to save a tooth. It’s better to pull it.”

The idea of pulling a tooth made me think of the Tom Hanks character in the movie Castaway, holding his head against a rock as he positioned an ice skate recovered from a FedEx box to knock out an infected tooth, and himself, in the process.

Surely it wouldn’t be that bad, I told myself.

The oral surgeon set aside all his appointments and took me in. Apparently, the endodontist called to tell the surgeon the procedure was urgent.

Until then, I’d been in hard training for an upcoming triathlon in Wauconda, Illinois. My swimming was improved, but I worried a bit about the warming water temps and having to forgo my wetsuit on an 800-yard course. My cycling that summer was solid. Averaging 19mph for 26 miles in an earlier Olympic Distance triathlon race gave me confidence. The running was going well too. I was training at 7:00 pace on the track.

I looked forward to racing Wauconda in mid-July until the tooth pain hit. I explained my race plans to the oral surgeon:”I have a race next weekend. “Do you think I can do it?”

The surgeon paused a bit, feeling around my jawline with a serious expression on his face. He said, “This infection has gone sublingual. That means it dropped down below your gums and tooth roots into your throat area. If we don’t pull the tooth quick and get the infection under control with antibiotics, there’s a possibility your throat might close and you could die.”

I lay there in the chair realizing how real the situation just got. The oral surgeon went to work pulling the damned tooth out of its socket, and I don’t recall much else about that afternoon. For days I’d been sitting in pain with that tooth throbbing in my head and now that it was out, I wondered if the pain would go away. Will it? I asked the doctor.

“It should,” he consoled me. “Plus you’re going to fill this prescription for hydrocodone and antibiotics. But I am giving you my personal number to call if you experience any more swelling in your throat. And I mean it. Call me at any hour.”

I took the card with his number to the car with me. Daylight always looks strange after you’ve been lying in a medical office chair for an hour. My whole head felt like a 50-gallon drum perched on my neck. I got in the car and drove home, stopping at the drugstore on the way to get my painkillers and germ fighting meds.

The novocaine started to wear off but the drugs did their trick. But my throat still looked like I was holding my breath. The next morning I pulled out my Driver’s License to fill out some form and realized I was due to get a new one before my birthday in July. I had no choice but to get the license taken with my face blown up like a balloon. My expression in that photo was dour. I looked to be in pain because I still was. My face was fat and wide and my eyes looked sunken.

For the next few years that license reminded me to take better care of my teeth. Renewing my license this year and getting a new photo was quite a joy.

And that’s the synopsis of the reason I might have died that year.

Ensuing drama

Yet the drama didn’t end there. I was still determined to race the weekend after the tooth was pulled. My wife’s sister was coming into town to do the same race, and I thought it would be fun to compete on the same day considering she’d been the one who “introduced” me to triathlon in 2013 when I first watched her sister Sue compete in Racine.

I drove up to Wauconda (an hour away) the day before the race to pick up her packet along with mine. My body still didn’t feel strong due to the effects of sustained pain and the drugs I was taking. But I’d raced the Lake Zurich Olympic tri when I had c.diff from taking drugs to treat cellulitis after our cat Wanda bit me, and I still won my age group.

So I thought I could fake my way through this triathlon too. Knowing we’d have to get up at 4:00 a.m. to drive to the race in time for transition to open, I went to bed at 7:30 but woke up at 3:00 a.m. to the sounds of thunder rumbling and rain pelting our roof. My wife rolled over and said, “Are you still going to race?”

I thought it through for a few minutes and got up to walk around. I felt like total shit. My legs were aching. My lungs didn’t feel good. My face was still puffy if not swollen thanks to the medications. Coming back to bed, I told her, “No, I’m not driving all the way up there.”

The storm kept pelting our house with rain and hail. Lightning flashed and I could not get back to sleep. Walking downstairs, I checked outside to find rivers of rainwater flowing from the downspouts. Then I got a text from my wife. “Julie is still doing the race but you have her race packet. What do you want to do?”

“I’ll drive it up to her,” I texted back. So I grabbed her packet with the race numbers and stickers and timing chip, hopped in my trusty brown Subaru Outback and drove up to Crystal Lake where Julie was staying with a longtime friend and fellow triathlete. I’d made it to her door by 4:30 a.m. “Here you go, sis,” I chuckled. “I am not fucking racing. I feel like shit.”

Looking out at the darkness and rain, she laughed. “Well, you picked a good one to skip.”

I don’t recall if they wound up racing that day or not. On the drive home the rain pounded my car roof for another fifteen minutes and then stopped as if someone turned off the shower. That was that. I went home and crawled back into bed. Sue was awake as I nudged over to her for a hug. “What a week,” I chuckled.

The sublingual infection finally subsided. I wasn’t going to die after all. The next year I went back to Wauconda and won my age group despite heat and humidity that damn near melted us in our tracks. I lacked salt for the last three miles of the hilly 10K run and suffered mightily trying to keep up the pace, but crossed the finish line somewhat resuscitated after finding some energy chews I’d stuff into the thigh of my bib pockets. I crossed the finish line with my tongue digging the last bit of a jelly chew out of the socket where my infected tooth once tried to kill me. A thought went through my head. “This hurt but at least I’m alive.”

Maybe you know that feeling for one reason or another. Perhaps that’s why we do this insanely painful sport: to feel alive in the fullest. Suffering has a way of doing that, heightening our senses for better or worse.

But I was sure rocking this Zoot kit that day, don’t you think? I