Yesterday, Alvin. Today, Marlon.

Try as I do to view life through a lens of optimism, I cannot ignore the elephant in the room.

A weak, starving, decrepit and decaying elephant that is molar number 30.

Have you been socked in the jaw? You’ll know then the sensation in the lower right.

Have you seen the jowly cotton-stuffed cheeks of Marlon Brandon in “The Godfather?”

You’ll then be able to imagine what others see and what I see in the mirror.

I received yesterday good news and bad from the endondontist.

The good news is that he agreed to renew the prescription.

He did so reluctantly and with the understanding that it would be only once.

The bad news — which is not really bad news, rather a reminder — concerns the bone loss. It is already considerable.

It will only continue (as well as potentially spread to adjoining teeth) the longer that the tooth remains untreated.

The antibiotics are a temporary Band-Aid solution; the staff and I are not fooling ourselves.Either an extraction or root canal (assuming a best-case scenario that the tooth can still be saved) is required.

And with that I did receive the prescription.

The antibiotics are less effective now than in the previous three courses in the past 1-1/2 months, indicating advancing decay and disease.

Last month they had me and molar feeling better within a day or three. They’re potent. Today, “despite” them, I write with a teabag – a home remedy, a know – shoved between teeth and cheek with hopes of reducing inflammation (which I think is the body’s way of trying to rid itself of infection, trapping detritus and bacteria within a closed environment => inflammation. Gallons of water can assist.)

Two months ago, I’d have said the tooth can probably be saved; now, I’m not so sure.

I’m so incredibly dental-savvy, it’s not funny. I dialogue with dentists in their language and terminology. When an unfamiliar term is used, I learn its meaning and insert it into my vocabulary. If the average dental experience runs around third grade, I’m in the third year of grad school.

It’s how it is.

And why when I write that I’ve never seen a dental condition like this, those words have power, meaning and significance.

The pain and swelling that continue despite the antibotics indicate that something dangerous and unhealthy is occurring. The condition is no longer limited to the crippled sick elephant in the room.

The air of the room is now poisoned. The soft tissues of the inner cheek and gums stretching from the jaw socket to the middle are alarmingly swollen; truly I could be kin to Marlon Brando.

The air cleaner in the room is not removing the toxins at a pace that exceeds their creation.

It IS about the elephant in the room. Now, however, it is about the room too. And THAT is new. New to this particular tooth (needing treatment since 2009). New to my experience, both dentally and life.

I know the prognosis; I do not need a dentist or endodontist to tell me. The tooth will be lost if it is not treated. Promptly.

No longer is it a matter of years. Untold months. Weeks, barely. It is a matter of days.

Unfortunately, my predicament does not allow me to give the elephant the oxygen and nourishment it needs or as quickly as it needs.

For now, I’ll need to bear it out — (painfully) bite the bullet if you will — watch as the animal collapses and sputters and hopefully catch him before his death rattle.

I cannot be 100% certain that that can be accomplished. I can do only so much handcuffed and severely constrained. I am seeking a solution.

I normally do not share on private health matters but am making an exception.

Why? Firstly, as a record to God … Divine Spirit … Higher Forces and Consciousness … the term is less important than the acknowledgment of Light and its existence. I’m a writer and my most intimate connection to All is through the word.

No other situation has the urgency or call for assistance and action; it has my attention and focus and rightly so.

Secondly, by sharing my experiences (specifically though not exclusively through writing), others have an opportunity to gain insight and expand their world views and/or understanding of life.

Impoverishment, poverty, lack and hardship dampen, darken, even blacken, the world and/or one’s life. Extended, they take a toll that I myself never could have imagined or understood until I myself went through it.

The swollen jaw and diseased molar 30 — the sick elephant in the room — is a heart-wrenching living/dying reminder of where I’ve come from. It is both symptomatic of forces far greater than I AND is a very serious issue of its own.

Darkness destroys.

The elephant is expiring. It cannot live without my help.

And I cannot help it without help from the higher realms to lift the burden and open the channel into treatment.

That’s how it is.

Yesterday I was Alvin’s doppelganger; today, Marlon’s kin.

And for the record, next time my jaw feels raw and punched, I wish it from an fist, not a molar.

Makes for a better story.

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