I flatten my palms together on my lap and turn my body to the left in the gray, plastic chair in the white and gray exam room.

“While we’re talking about the abscess, is it common post to have bone loss? I mean,” I look down and flatten my palms onto the top of my thighs, applying pressure and moving them toward my knees at a snail’s pace, “I am pretty sure this was going on before the transplant. I met with the periodontist a year ago? Maybe two years? I can’t remember, but this was definitely happening before.”

“I don’t have much information for patients who had issues prior, but during this acute healing phase post, it isn’t uncommon to have other factors, like bone loss, occur. We’ll schedule a bone density test.”

I nod and am silent as I listen to my transplant RN inform me of all the different options if the bone loss returns more global than local.

Last week, I learned from my dentist that the tooth they tried to save a year ago or so has an abscess. After looping in the transplant team, I was put on Amoxicillin and scheduled an appointment with the periodontist for a consultation. They amazingly got me in within two weeks, when originally I was going to have to wait until May. It helps to be a special case.

The gums and teeth in the abscess uncovered area, back molars, did not indicate anything was wrong with them. No signs until the hygienist was filling the cavity back there and found they were irritated. After filling the cavity, she asked if she could get a quick x-ray which of course I was fine with. Then, to my amazement, she opened a cupboard in the very exam area in which I was sitting in the dentist lounge chair and pulled out an x-ray machine. My jaw dropped then was quickly filled with the spacer that complimented the machine. I remember walking to a separate room as a kid to get x-rays of my mouth done with a giant machine.

The hygenist showed me the abscess and area of bone loss.

The dentist showed me the abscess and area of bone loss.

I stared at the the abscess and area of bone loss, trying to make sense of the gray-hued image and what all this meant.

I walked out of the dentist office with an action item: call the periodontist to schedule a consultation. Action item, next step, first step to figuring out what the larger long term solution will be.

I stepped over the parking curb next to my car. The car beeped open when I touched the inside of the handle. I slid into the black leather driver’s seat and started the car up. I looked at my phone but didn’t have the energy to turn on my audio book or music. In silence, I pulled out onto the side street that connects to Riverside, the road to home, and let the tears fall. I was not ready to undergo another surgery. To experience severe pain again. On the horizon, one option: root canal, the other: pull my molars and then place implants.

It has been four months since I received my double lung transplant and the recovery has been moving along seamlessly. Truly unbelievable, I could not be more thankful for this opportunity and support system. Now that I am in such a better state post transplant, the other aches, pains, and ailments are vying for attention.

I look from the linoleum tiled floor in the gray and white exam room to my transplant RN. “Thank you, it is good to know this isn’t another anomaly.”

I left the transplant office in a better mood than the week prior knowing that regardless of the outcome of the upcoming tests and consultations, I have a team of doctors who are trustworthy, skilled, and familiar with my symptoms.

And, most importantly, I can breathe.