Wednesday, April 21, 2010

What Goes Around Comes Around - Mark Cavendish Edition

This is what I get for making fun of dentally-challenged Mark Cavendish - I need at least two root canals and am going to be off the grid for a bit, it seems.


For the confused amongst you, ProTour field-sprinter extraordinaire Mark "I am God and He is ME" (ex.news headline: "How Sprint King Plans to Rule the World") Cavendish has had a quiet season thus far because, according to him, he suffered massive complications from emergency dental work. Complications that wrecked his preparation and actually brought about negative changes in his body (ex. he lost lean muscle mass).

And I made fun of him and wondered if he hadn't gotten what he deserved (which was a kick in the pants from Life to knock him back into reality).

And so this morning, after biting into a nut-filled granola bar, I thought I'd detonated a crunchy-snack-bomb (aka the "C.S.B.", the bastard brother to the I.E.D.) - so hurt my mouth, and two teeth in particular. Quick back-story - my dentist died a couple of years ago, and while I'd kept up my spectacular home-based oral hygiene routine, some major life crises [about which you're now aware...] distracted me and kept me from forming a relationship with a new dentist with whom I felt comfortable. And if enough time goes by, Life makes you get out and find a new dentist. Sigh, how pathetic to be reduced to writing about one's brushing habits...screw that! To shift the spotlight somewhere else, let's quote Cav' from Paul Kimmage's best interview ever:

“My saliva glands were like grapes,” he says. “My palate was massive. I couldn’t shut my mouth [André Greipel could probably tell us a thing or two about that...]. I couldn’t eat. It was pushing up my tongue and I couldn’t breathe. I was crying like a baby. The team doctor and the dental nurse had to hold me in the chair as the dentist cut [my gum] and got the pus out. I almost passed out with the pain. I was on antibiotics for 10 days and they wiped me out. I had diarrhoea. I couldn’t eat. I was lying in my bed for days and lost so much weight. I couldn’t train for three weeks and lost so much muscle that it knocked me right back. If I could turn back time, I would stick with my teeth [laughs]. I am not normally vain but that was the one thing that got me.”

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