As I sit writing this, I am trying to burn enough nervous energy to keep myself calm. My 17-year-old son is having a horizontally impacted wisdom tooth extracted at this very moment. The speed with which this once-vertical tooth turned has me concerned. A good friend of mine is doing the surgery and I have full confidence in his abilities as a surgeon and as a temporary surrogate to my son during the surgery itself.

Nevertheless, thoughts of complications, anesthesia, recovery and the actual reason for this tooth turning in the first place have my head spinning. My decision to stay at work and have my wife take him has me having second thoughts as well. I want the surgeon to do his job without thoughts of me being in the next room. I now fully understand a phrase my father used a few years ago when we were sitting together in the hospital, keeping vigil over my mother during a very bad time in our lives. He kept looking at his watch saying, "the minutes seem like hours."

So, as with any challenge in life, it's best to turn it positive and see what can be learned from a situation to make us better people or dentists. So many things become routine for us professionally. The next time I tell a patient that she needs root canal and she gasps, I will sit back and discuss the reason for the gasp and try harder to dispel her fears. The next time that 11-year-old boy is sitting in my chair with a broken central from a fall off his bike, I will try to do my best to calm both him and his mother, treating his broken tooth, and the patient and parent emotionally at the same time.

In essence, we need to treat both the mouth and the mind. A few minutes of your time means so much to a patient, especially one in some form of distress. It helps them get through what may be routine to us, but is a crisis for them. Today I learned a lesson, and will be a better person and dentist for having gone through it.

Now, only about 20 more hours until its over for my son. Oops, I mean minutes.