Forty. To some, life begins at that age (however that shapes their lives). Others find their lives settled - with their career path set out and being happily married (with or without children - their choice, really). For me, it is the start in deterioration of my body.
Getting involved in the road-traffic accident for me at the age of twenty-one was both unlucky and lucky. Unlucky for the obvious reasons - to have almost died and lost the ability to run and enjoy sports, to lose a possibly rewarding career in the army. Who knows what I might have achieved if I had stayed healthy and fit? I continue to have a dull pain in my lower back when I exert myself in that area.
However, I say I am lucky because I met the mishap at such an early stage - where my body has had time to slowly recover. No, I will not be (and never be) back to a hundred per cent. But it has allowed me time and space to think of and understand the situation I had been in, to understand myself and what I had faced. And as life would have it, it led me to meeting my wife - something that could never have happened if I had stay fit and healthy.
These couple of years have made me realise that my body is slowly, but surely, deteriorating. A few years back, I found my vision not being the same as before - I could not read things that were held close to my face well. Presbyopia had set in a little before I had turned forty.
And just the past couple of days, it felt like there was a piece of something wedged between the tooth and the gum. It was far back on the top left-hand side of my teeth. Using my thumb and index finger, I tried a few times to pull the foreign object out. I finally succeeded after numerous tries. Peace, at last.
Or so I thought.
After a while, I experienced a dull pain and discomfort in the same place! To be exact, it came from the last few teeth on the upper side of the teeth at the back - my molars. Did the foreign object cause much damage already?!
I reached a finger in and touched the teeth - the one that was causing the pain shook a little from the nudging. Not good. This was exactly the kind of shaking I felt when a tooth was loose and about to fall out.
Oh no! Did I have to have it extracted?
I bore with the discomfort that day, hoping for it to go away. And like a miracle, it did! The pain left me like it had been a dream. Although the part where the tooth stood was still shaking, that portion was felt numb.
The day went on and all was fine. Little did I know that it was the calm before the storm.
(To be continued...)
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