Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ...

Michael Fassbender as Macbeth, 2015

I hate to contradict Macbeth (that dude had blood on his hands!), but tomorrow does not creep at a petty pace*--not when oral surgery is in the offing. As it is for me ... tomorrow ...

I'm in the process of getting an implant. A few months ago the surgeon did the extraction of the Evil Tooth, did some repair work, laid a foundation for new bone growth, then took a bunch of $$ from me and said he'd see me in a few months.

At the time, it seemed like a long ways off.

It's tomorrow ...

And tomorrow he's scheduled me for an hour and a half, at the end of which time he will collect some mega-$$ from me, and Joyce will drive the Dazed Me home, where I will search for Morpheus, beg him to embrace me.

Then--at some future time (how long?)--my own dentist here in town will screw in the new "tooth," and I will be able, once again, to chew solid food on the left side of my mouth.

The missing tooth is in a strategic spot: lower left molar. So about all I can manage there (chewing-wise) is a banana (my daily confirmation of my union with other primates) and things that the right side of my mouth has already reduced to mush. I'm kind of used to it now, actually, but, as Caesar supposedly said, "The die is cast."

(In high school, by the way, that line never made sense to me--I kept thinking it was a typo for "The dye is cast." Since I am a  Dyer, you can see why I would think that?!?)

As one ages (translation: As I get older and gallop toward the grave ...), one experiences more and more medical attention to the entire range--head to toe--of one's body. In the past few years, for example, I've visited (in geographical order)

• a neurologist (brain MRI--the findings were, in her words, "unremarkable"--not a word one wants to hear about one's brain!)
• an ophthalmologist (cataract surgery)
• a dermatologist to freeze worrisome things on my face (he seems to prefer my nose)
• dentists of various sorts
• a radiation oncologist (zapping cancer cells in my spine)
• an oncologist specializing in "that" area
• a gastroenterologist (colonoscopy)
• a podiatrist (guess what he was interested in?!?!)

So ... head-to-toe, as the saying goes. (Though my toes are actually in pretty good shape; it was my arch that had become nettlesome.)

And now it's time: 8:30-10:00 a.m.

Tomorrow.

And as the date has neared, I feel as if my life is now mirroring that old cinematic device--calendar pages whirling by, clock hands accelerating. (Link to some old video of such things.)

And I laugh at lucky Macbeth, who lost his head before he ever had to endure a dental implant.

*Link to Macbeth's "tomorrow" speech delivered by Sir Patrick Stewart.