Flying by the Fillings of My Teeth

A few years ago, Don and I watched the made-for-T.V. miniseries, Dinotopia. We enjoyed it so much that Don bought the DVD's. The children have watched them with us several times.

On the island of Dinotopia, which is cut off from the rest of the charted world by sharp, jagged coral reefs and strong, dangerous tides, man and dinosaur have learned to communicate. Dinotopia is governed by 13 basic principles, which include such philosophical ideas as, "We eat to live, not live to eat", and "Every raindrop raises the level of the sea". In Dinotopia, the common greeting is, "Breathe deeply" to which you respond, "Fly High".

This morning, I had oral surgery. A bridge on my lower left side, which I have had since the early 80's, had leaked and needed to be replaced. I have serious problems with dental injections. In the past, I've had blisters occur at the injection site and, quite often, my jaw will freeze in place, sometimes for weeks, rendering me unable to eat or talk. My dentist has walked through several of these side-effects to procedures and no longer laughs when I ask for pain medication. He requests that I dose up with Motrin or Ibuprofen for a couple of days before any dental work to get a headstart on dealing with inflammation. Today, I was very nervous, knowing that the procedure would be long and painful.

I told him how I was feeling and expressed some anxiety.

"You could even use Nitris on me if you like," I commented.

Realizing that I was serious, he pulled out the nitris oxide (which I've never had before but helped tremendously) and put the mask on me. Near the end of the procedure, I asked the technician to remove it - I felt I was getting a little too much at that point.

Before I left, he sat down to talk with me about what he found and discussed the nitris use with me, explaining that we can use it again in the future and maybe that's an answer to the stress dental work gives me. As we talked about it, I was reminded of Dinotopia's greeting (keep in mind, I had just had 2 hours of nitris oxide) - Breathe deeply; fly high.

He immediately saw the connection and began to laugh.

"Yep. The deeper you breathe, the higher you fly, all right." he said.

That greeting will forever take on a new meaning for me.