It’s been a vicious cycle.
I’ve had this bit of scar tissue on the inside of my cheek.
It sticks out, so I keep biting it.
Because I keep biting it, it keeps growing bigger.
And the bigger it gets, the more often I bite it.
Finally, the dentist advised removing it.
I HATE dental procedures.
But I hate this bitey-bit even more.
So I agreed to have it removed.
I thought they would just take a knife and shave it off.
That’s what a dermatologist would do.
Apparently, the dentist operates in a completely different orbit than the dermatologist.
They did not cut it.
They cauterized it.
In other words, they burned it off.
They used tweezers to hold the lesion up, and then they cauterized the base.
Yes, there was smoke.
Yes, there was the smell of burning flesh.
Yes, I was completely numb.
I sat very, very, very still so they wouldn’t accidentally burn parts of me that they didn’t intend to burn
But I was freaking out on the inside.
When I got home and took a look, I was horrified to see a blackened, ashy fire pit inside my cheek.
Seriously, it was a third-degree burn.
It brought to mind every crime movie I’ve ever seen where they put out a cigarette on somebody’s face.
You can’t use a salve or an ointment inside your mouth.
You just have to deal with it.
Ewww, it was gross.
Nobody was more surprised than me to find, the next morning, that it was significantly healed.
It was no longer black and ashy.
It didn’t even hurt.
It’s reassuring to know that the dentist really did know what she was doing.
I’ll still freak out at my next visit.
Because that’s how I roll.
But I’ll definitely freak out with a little more confidence, a little less crime-movie vibe, and a whole lot less of that painful vicious cycle.
Liz Brenner
Everyone has a story to tell.
Even you.
Especially you.
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