Jaws
This is a story of pain, fear, blood and dead bodies. It's a story of one man's stupidity. It's a story of hunger and greed. It's a story of (get on with it - Ed) Ok, let me work back from last night when I found myself talking to members of the Press with half my face frozen and with the wild-eyed, slap-happy look of a man who hadn't slept for 36 hours. I was part of a ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland briefing about our various Burns programming. There was a haggis 'n' neeps supper and then a screening of the comedy drama No Holds Bard. I got the chance to talk about our big Burns project in which we're recording every piece of his poetry and creating an online video and audio archive. I was a bit, as they say, "all over the place".
I only have myself to blame for my state of disarray. On Wednesday morning, while driving to Glasgow, I had noticed a slight niggling toothache. Nothing too bad. Nothing that couldn't wait until I returned to Inverness on Friday and maybe made an appointment to see my dentist next week. My colleague, Sharon Mair, gave me a couple of paracetamols. All was well.
Or so I thought.
Wednesday night saw me sitting up in a hotel bedroom, risking an ibuprofen overdose and test-sipping hot and then cold drinks to alleviate the agony. Nothing worked. I didn't get a wink of sleep and by the time dawn cracked over Glasgow city centre I had devised a plan. I would drive up to my old dentist's surgery in Bearsden and be on his doorstep at quarter to nine begging for an emergency appointment.
The receptionist was merciful, but no one could see me until eleven o'clock. I had two hours to kill and there was no point in driving back to Pacific Quay. I re-arranged all my morning appointments and decided on a diverting stroll through my old home turf. I walked past my old house, noticed the trees I had planted were doing well. I had a look in the local cemetery and then decided to take refuge in Bearsden library where I leafed through a copy of the Jonathan Ross biography. For some reason it was sitting in a shelf of books labelled 'Misery Memoirs'.
I was engrossed in Ross' tales of his early sex life when the librarian told me I would have to leave the premises. Not just me. They had to empty the place to test the alarm system. No matter, it was finally time for me to see the dentist.
What followed next was one of the most traumatic experiences I've ever had in a chair. Having decided to extract the problem tooth, the dentist needed to give me five different injections to freeze my mouth. It turns out I had developed an abscess and this was interfering with the anasthetic. Eventually I told her that she would just have to "go fot it" regardless of the pain. Oh yes.
A half an hour later she was still wrestling with the tooth. It just didn't want to come out. In what could have been an alternative version of the movie Jaws, she finally decided that we were gonna need a bigger denitist. One duly arrived and he spent another ten minutes filling my mouth with various clamps and contraptions until the tooth surrendered to his sheer brute force. I had been in the chair for more than an hour.
And that was almost that, except that I was warned that my nerve structure had been given a fair old bashing and that I might have a numb jaw for another couple of weeks. I was given a prescription for anti-biotics and told not to drink alcohol or take strenuous exercise for 24 hours. Some of those rules were better than others.
I went back to work and as the afternoon wore on the anasthetic wore off and the pain returned. That was why, at six o'clock last night, in a room full of reporters, I was in such a state.
And do you know the worst of it?
I wasn't able to eat any haggis.
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