I had dental work done a few days ago, and by “dental work” I mean “they drilled a giant screw into my face.”

I’m getting an implant.

Everything’s fine, but it’s not fun. Even though my brain knows that all this disruption is happening for a reason, my body doesn’t. So my body is freaking out, and part of that is swelling and inflammation and pain.

I always forget how much harder it is to be nice when you’re in pain. How much harder it is to see reality outside of your perception. How much harder it is to think beyond your immediate experience.

Growing up, I was in pain a lot. I would laugh at my friends when they had stomach aches, because…well, growing up with Crohn’s Disease is not something that I would wish on anyone. But because I was familiar with pain, I had a lot of defenses to it.

I knew how to push through, how to skirt around the sides of it, how to deflect until I got what I wanted.

Now that I’m older and my body is somewhat healed, I don’t have that pain anymore. And I’ve lost some of the tolerance for it. I’m not the cunning 15-year-old I once was.

This last few days has been an education again.

My advice is this: if you know you’re going to be in pain, plan to have trusted people around you as a reality check.

And if you find yourself in pain now, remember that there is a whole world outside of you that does not revolve around it. It’s difficult to remember or comprehend sometimes, but it’s true.