Pain in full circle

I have been down with an uncomfortable pain for a long time. Though it occurred occasionally the fear of  relapse was perpetual.  Anyone with wisdom tooth can easily relate to this pain. The infamous pain of Wisdom Tooth!

This pain first occurred in September, when I refused to believe that  I could even remotely have chances of any sort dental issues. The very term “Tooth extraction” felt life threatening. My dentist prescribed some pain killer, anti-biotics & mouth-wash that would take care of pain and prevent it from getting worse, but that was short term solution. after a while, I thought I was fine & could refrain from the extraction procedure.

We were in US to celebrate Christmas and new years with friends and family. Harsh winters, bottomless cans of candies and chocolates, soda & oh the food! One of the days post Christmas and before NYE, I felt this familiar yet  weird discomfort under my right cheek,ignored it! that afternoon I got myself a big a** burrito from my favorite restaurant Chipotle, just when I opened my mouth to take byte, I hear my jaw cracking. I instinctively drop my burrito and held the side of cheek that pained the most. That’s when I knew, Its back! While we were in California (holidaying), nor did we have any insurance & neither was I carrying my previously prescribed medicines . Hence the only option was to pay full price for visiting a doctor(not a dentist)  & purchase medicines at full price; which I later realized were giving me rashes all over my body (yes, I’m allergic to anti-biotics).

That’s when I said, enough is enough. Came back home and first thing I did was booked a dental appointment and held my self tight to feel the pain post extraction. Obviously, I was not the first one in the world to have such an extraction, hence I went asking people I knew about it, and everyone had pretty much similar & simple reply, “It’s best to take it off, yea the couple of days after the extraction are not easy….but otherwise, you’ll be just fine…” It didn’t stop here, like all new things to me, I Googled ‘wisdom tooth’ and read a couple of articles, I was only looking for one line that mentioned an alternative to tooth extraction… found none, and finally, came to terms with the fact that extraction was the only way out.

Appointment was scheduled for 16^th March 2010, 11:00 AM, with a lovely lady dentist Dr. Marlies Homann. My mom-in-law accompanied me for some moral support. Dentist and her staff were very kind and gentle. They were, thankfully, very honest about the level or magnitude of pain I will experience at every stage. I think the first stage of numbing the mouth was the most painful. FIVE huge injections(…. Arrgh, the look and size of the syringe made it more painful than the piercing itself ), I cried buckets. We had to wait for about half an hour for it to take its course and numb my mouth completely and then start the procedure. That half an hour passed by like half a second. Took me so close to my the procedure, without any room to escape…

Finally, I open my mouth, clenching my mom-in-laws arms tightly and let the extraction begin. Honestly, I felt no pain, none. All felt  was pressure, pressure of my dentist’s entire body weight on my little last tooth….. and TAA DAA.. its done. Phew! That was easy; no seriously….Time for second one, lower one… this was harder due to its smaller size & fact that it was placed in inner most corner of my mouth (this made me dizzy).

“OK, KHALLAS (finished in arabic)” said my dentist. I could not be more relived. I could not believe that I went through it all. The only set of pain killers I was asked to take were on-the-counter bruffins. They did help.

Day 1 (after procedure)- It was nice and easy, some negligible pain.

Day 2- much better, could talk more, eat everything.

Day 3- Woke up early & happy, only to know that my pain might just disappear today, almost like a new start.

Just when I open my mouth to brush, left side on my cheek refuse to open normally. It was too early in morning for me to guess what it was. As day passed by there was a familiar feeling I had before…

Yes, its yet another set of painful wisdom teeth waiting to be extracted, this time on the left side!

How different is Unique…?

“ When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.”

-          Sophia Lauren.

The above statement by an Italian actress beautifully epitomizes Saudi mothers. Behind the “veil of powerlessness” an average Saudi mother is no different from her European and Western counterparts.

Sadeem*, 36, has been living in Riyadh since her childhood. She has 3 kids, a daughter and 2 sons. “I’m a chemical engineer by education, but did not have chance to work since I got married as soon as I graduated…” any regrets? I asked, “not at all, I was happy because that way I had a lot of time to spend with my husband, and later with my kids…”

She chose not to ‘work’ on a full time job since she does not want to make compromises at family levels, “…my husband works for more than eight hours a day, if I don’t stay at home and take care of kids, who will. I don’t mind taking up a full time job, but I would do so, only when my kids have all gone to Universities…” An average day in Sadeem’s life involves regular home chores like cooking, cleaning, helping kids with homework & assignments. Her favorite activities are surfing internet (emails and news websites to begin with), socializing with friends and family, reading fiction, non-fiction & religious books & shopping, of course; “My favorite outing is nice dinners with my husband, alone…!” and she blushed.

Most interesting thing about one of her past time that caught my attention was watching TV. She claims to be a die- hard fan of programs on MBC 4- Oprah & The Doctor’s TV and other Arabic shows. “…I understand English in bits, but subtitles always help!”

Younger Generation of Saudi women have been quite active in the business and job scenes. Though this freedom was not inherited, they value it and inspire many mothers like Sadeem to encourage her daughter to graduate and work. “ Gamrah*, my oldest child, will soon be in high school, she is very good in her studies and all other activities. I definitely want her to study a lot and continue with a job. I not only want her to grow up age wise but also be well educated and independent women…”

Beyond all these thoughts, ideas and ambitions, there was slight discomfort in voice about the system that she, her daughter and rest of the family is in. “Well I’m not very content with the system. I hope there was some more freedom. But if these are the cultural and traditional values, I will respect it.”

A Saudi woman has benefit of accumulating wisdom for centuries. Most of all, she also has an advantage of making her own choices, in creating and experiencing an entirely new era of Change. She has experienced choice of her own growth and sensed the liberation with in.

“If you swim against the tide, you might either sink or die out of over doing, hence I choose to float in the same direction and be content, be happy …”

- Sadeem Abdulaah.

*Names changed to protect privacy.

Karma Matter

Ever since I quit my full-time job, cooking and watching T.V have been my favorite activities.   As I browsed through channels, E! is one channel where I always look for something fun to watch. Some gossip, some real life drama or some useful tips on what (not) to wear etc… One of the popular shows on that channel is “Running in heels.”

In all honesty, I started watching this show only cause of its title. Running in heels. To me, this clearly meant things people do to survive in corporate world. This reality show was about 3 girls, Talita, Samantha & Ashely in NYC interning for a fashion magazine called Marie Claire. What they captured on show was the reality of what an intern goes through in real world. Alongside, it clearly highlights the attitude of others’ towards interns, tension between interns, cold shoulders and my touch point that gets the TRP scoring- the sabotaging.

I have closely followed all the episodes and it’s been quite entertaining. Today was the final episode of the season. One of the interns would get a chance to continue working with Marie Claire & the lucky name was to be revealed.

Joana, Chief Editor of the magazine, a tough critic observed girls closely and would decide on which one to pick.  It was towards the end of last episode, that she met all the interns and scrutinized each of them based on their performances.  These were her comments on them; Samantha- smart, sweet, approachable and a good writer; Tolita- proactive, deligent, but challenged in grammar & spellings; Ashley- Talented, hard working and good presentation skills.What shocked me the most  was what followed first line of comments.Samantha, had more of PR skills, she was not really meant for a ‘magazine’ world. Ashley, along with her talent and hard work she was also a gifted sabotage. There was not a single time she missed out on elbowing someone else to get where she wanted. Tolita, yes, she did have to polish her skills but has proven herself to be hardworking, dedicated & humane individual.

As a typical TV buff, was was glued to the TV through out the advertisements (which I usually skip) to know who would be the one. Her feedback was very generic and neutral.  Talita was the winner. She was chosen to be Marie Claire’s correspondent in the West Coast.

I was Happy to here that, not because I secretly admired one of them and hence wanted Talita to get this job, but there was more of  personal agenda attached to it.  Somewhere deep down inside, there was something about the climax that I strongly believed in and followed in every given chance. According Joanna, the editor-in-chief and the benevolent dictator of the magazine, had simple yet basic reasons for choosing Talita. Honesty, persistence and hard-work. I’ve personally been part of corporate world and seen people right from lowest to the highest level, nice-est to the mean-est, lethargic ones to the most active ones. Irrespective of the level, something that always mattered and appreciated was the human-ness of every individual. Talita, was not the super talented or gifted-by-birth kinds, she certainly had all the characteristics that I personally endorsed. In the end, her honesty & niceness paid off really well!

As per the skills, yes they are important assests but can also be superficial or easily acquired.

I guess these ARE ‘Reality Show’ for a reason!