It’s not in a tooth, that’s for damn sure! Why oh why do we have wisdom teeth!?!?! The truly evolved humans are those born without them! Sorry for the hyperbolic rant. So my tooth was bugging me again and so this morning I went to my local oral surgeon (not in LA this time, haha) to have him look at it. Once again, he said it was infected and he would need to make another incision so it could be drained again. I look forward to a day when I go to see an oral surgeon and don’t have to have surgery on the spot. It’s kind of nice to have a little advance warning that you are going to have surgery, ya know? But it wasn’t so bad and at least he said I could eat normal food once the numbing and pain stops. Sigh. The pain is pretty bad but luckily I have a higher threshold for pain these days. To distract myself, I decide to make a nice lil icon of my “wise” yet sad tooth. It recalls one of my favorite illustrators Princess Tina (aka Beci Orpin) from Australia whose sad tooth necklace I used to wear back in my early 20s. I remember the day back in 2004 when I was wearing it and found out that I had 15 cavities because my childhood dentist was negligent. Oh, my tooth troubles go way back you see!

If there is one major lesson I’ve learned from this crazy experience called cancer, it is to trust your intuition. I had a strong feeling that the tooth was getting infected again and luckily I went in earlier than last time when I had a giant abscess and could not open my jaw! This idea of intuition has been on my mind a lot lately because of all the things I’ve been learning about through the Integrative Nutrition training program. Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming to learn about so many different theories of health and nutrition. Especially because I am so focused on healing myself right now and I want to try every diet to cure my disease! One of the things I’ve been thinking about in particular, inspired by many of the lecturers, is that the best thing for your health is to have intuition and to listen to yourself. Your body will tell you how to take care of itself because it wants to heal itself. All these popular super foods and extreme diets aren’t going to fix your health problems. The answer to whatever is ailing you is probably very simple and usually involves eating more vegetables. Ever since I first became interested in health about 10 years ago or so, I always wanted to figure out which herbal supplement would cure my sore throat or my menstrual cramps with a sense of impatience and worry. But now that I am fighting something larger that often causes side effects that cause me to worry and I can’t take supplements, I’ve realized the best thing I can do is be patient with my body but act when it tells me something is really wrong (like my tooth). I’m really looking forward to being a health coach one day so that I can help people heal themselves in a mindful, down to earth way instead of revamping one’s diet or adding superfoods to your smoothie. I am very grateful for Integrative Nutrition for all that I am learning. And I’m grateful for my amazing oral surgeon and my oncologist who are there when I need them. Well, I hope you enjoyed my philosophical waxing for the moment. There’s more where that came from! I’m going to go for a walk and enjoy the nice day (which has powerful healing properties too)! xoxo Lauren