Randomly reminded

You may have heard this one before... but consider it a Christmas story since I suspect the next post will come after the holidays...

In the month leading up to our wedding, I developed a canker sore. Normally, these things last a few days and then disappear, but this time around this canker sore stayed around for a while. In fact, it stayed with me for at least three weeks becoming, eventually, a problem.

As a disgusting aside, I remember seeing my doctor about it at the peak of the affliction. His response upon seeing it:

"ew. That's pretty gross." Yeah, I'm enjoying it too.

So, he prescribed some antibiotics and a simple topical anesthetic gel. The gel is great for quickly making things feel a whole lot better. The only problem is that it needs to be dabbed on form a small tube, and that needs a mirror and a steady hand. Remember these facts, because they will become important.

Two weeks prior to the wedding, I went with a client of mine up to northern Alberta to look at a well site. Not the sexiest in corporate travel destinations, but, hey, at least I get to travel in my job.

Getting to the site requires a flight from Calgary and then a few-hour drive from Fort McMurray. It's a lot of driving but this time I'm not the only other person in the SUB, so I can comfortably sit in the back while the client speaks with some of his colleagues.

Now, a canker sore is normally only a problem when you can feel it. And you can only feel it if it's being irritated by something (IE: food, teeth, tongue). So, typically, a canker sore isn't a problem until after lunch and it's had a half-day of irritation.

It's now late afternoon and I'm in the back of an SUB half an hour into a long ride back to the airport. The gravel road seems bumpier than normal and with every jostle, I'm painfully aware that I have a gross little demon in my mouth intent on making me tear up in front of a client. Fifteen minutes later, the pain is starting to become a serious issue for me. My face has begun to feel sore and the beginnings of a migrain are in play. The three others in the vehicle with me are talking away while I feel like I'd do anything to numb the pain.

And now all I can think about is that I have a tube of topical anesthetic in my pocket. No one's looking. I could easy just palm the tube and subtly open my mouth to dab some relief onto the canker sore. How hard could it be to do this thing blind? I do it fine in front of the mirror. No problem.

Yeah, no problem.

Ever-so-carefully, I reach into my pocket and grab the tube. I look around to make sure I don't have to do any explaining and then quickly unscrew the cap bringing the tube up to my mouth and under my lip toward the offending canker. I have to say, I thought the motion was achieved quite deftly. I then applied a slight pressure to the tube to urge out a bit of gel.

Suddenly, the SUV pitched violently on a pothole. My body tensed to gain some stability.

My hand tensed too--filling my mouth with all the anesthetic gel that had been in the tube.

There's a moment when instinct is all your body knows. And at that point--sitting in the back seat of my client's SUV with my mouth full of numbing chemicals--my body knew that the next step was to simply spit out the junk.

My mind, on the other hand, was quick to override instinct. I mean, how embarrassing would it be to quietly vomit a mouthful of gel onto the client's upholstery? Never mind having to explain the whole canker sore thing and how I'd clearly screwed up applying a simple medical gel.

My lips and tongue were starting to lose feeling. Panic was percolating. Can I spit this into my hand? Should I just let it sit in my mouth and hope no one asks me a question? Neither option seemed preferable.

So I swallowed it.

I have to admit, while that gel tastes awful, it does the job. I could no longer feel my canker sore. Nor my lips, tongue, gums or throat while the chemical gob is sliding toward my stomach. I'd taken decisive action on what to do with the gel and that had made me feel better, but now I was suddenly concerned about what it might to do my innards. I suspect this is not a medicine meant for major ingestion.

But, I'm on company time and panicking the client is on the list of things to avoid, so I sat silently in the back seat--a bit worried but mostly comfortably numb.

The canker sore problem was totally solved by our wedding day. So was the twitch I'd recently developed, but I suspect that's a different story.