The World of Dentistry

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The Bartlett pear (called Williams pear in England) is one of the tastiest and juiciest fruit in North American supermarkets. It’s hard to believe that by chewing on this soft delicacy, much to my dismay, I managed to break the filling on one of my lower molars.

Dental problems started to appear about 10,000 years ago, when humans stopped roaming the land to settle in villages and towns. At that time, mankind’s eating habits changed as our ancestors began eating more sugar, a leading cause for cavities.

Could it be that toothaches are God’s curse on the children of Cain for adopting their father’s sedentary living?

Cain was a farmer and his brother Abel was a nomad. Abel sacrificed the firstborns of his cattle to God who seemed to enjoy it. However, the zucchini, carrots and celery Cain offered up weren’t to the Almighty’s taste, maybe because Cain neglected to serve them with ranch dressing.

It took a long time for people to understand tooth decay. In olden times, cavities were thought to be caused by worms. In ancient Egypt, dental malformation in children was treated by feeding skinned and cooked mice to toddlers. In China, cavities were filled with bat dung. In Spain, frequent mouthwash with urine was key to good oral hygiene.

In the Middle Ages, tooth pullers began exercising their trade in public squares, promising their clients painless relief. Of course they were lying through their teeth but it provided great entertainment for crowds who had neither TV nor Internet to kill time. Tooth pullers also removed calluses.

In those days, dentistry and pedicure drank at the same well.

When Renaissance arrived, hairdressers joined the dental trade bandwagon. Noble ladies of Florence could thus have tartar removed from their teeth while getting a perm or having their hair styled.

In the 18th century, Pierre Fauchard, the “father of modern dentistry,” published The Surgeon Dentist in which he recommended the use of heavy metals for tooth fillings. He also endorsed regular mouthwash with urine.

A man collected his own urine in a bottle to use as mouthwash. Beware of unproven personal hygiene advice: it might just be a fad... especially if it’s gross.

Progress cannot be stopped but it sometimes takes a while to occur.

You can understand why I have always had mixed impressions about dental medicine. Should it be considered a science? An art? A technical trade?

With this in mind I began looking for a dentist. I chose a new dental office that had just opened in a strip mall close to where I lived, tucked between a video rental store, a pizza parlor and a realtor’s office.

Doctor Nguyen’s office was new, tidy, tastefully decorated and equipped with the latest technology. The good doctor was a pretty 30 year-old woman who had recently graduated from a Las Vegas dental school, a city that does not readily come to mind when you seek higher education.

I was told however that its dental schools have an excellent reputation.

After her examination, Doctor Nguyen told me that my decayed molar needed a crown but first I had to see a dental surgeon who would lower my gum, raise my jaw and perform root canal surgery. She would make the necessary arrangements for me.

Root canal surgery is a procedure in which the pulp of a damaged tooth is removed with files, reamers, drills and other precision instruments. Although this treatment sounds painful, the Polish surgeon I went to see possessed undeniable skills.

He first gave me a solid local anesthetic and then put on a blaring Johnny Cash CD to distract me from the abominations he was performing in my mouth using sharp objects.

I did not feel a thing.

When I saw Doctor Nguyen again, she worked for several minutes on my molar before saying: “This won’t do.”

She led me to her office. My mouth was numb from the anesthetic and I was still wearing the necessary bib that dentists tie around the neck of their patients while they intervene.

Doctor Nguyen turned on a giant screen on which I could see the digitized x-ray image of my mouth.

“You see, I can’t install a crown because your teeth are out of alignment, specifically here, here and here as well as on all this side of your mouth,” she said pointing at teeth with her laser pen.

“This is what I suggest: I will make a set of braces to adjust your teeth. You will wear it in your mouth for six to twelve months, long enough for your teeth to be redressed. This treatment will cost about $1,800. Your parents would have done well to take you to a dentist when you were a child.”

I refrained from telling her about my grandfather who lived the last 30 years of his life with only three teeth in his mouth and who saw a blacksmith when he had a toothache.

“Then I will install crowns on the teeth of your lower jaw which will no longer be aligned with those of the upper jaw. It’s about twelve crowns and it will cost $15,000 to $18,000. We can start the treatment next week.”

I asked Doctor Nguyen for a few days to think about it.

“You know, many people would not hesitate one moment to mortgage their house to receive such a treatment,” she said.

“Oh! I believe you!” I replied. “However, just to satisfy my curiosity, how much would it cost to have all my teeth pulled out to replace them with dentures?”

“About $10,000 but I wouldn’t recommend it,” she answered.

I thanked her, paid for the treatment I already had received and left her office, dizzy from novocaine and the astronomical amounts that she had quoted me for fixing my teeth.

A friend suggested I seek a second opinion and recommended a Swedish dentist for whom her sister worked as a dental assistant.

So I went to see Doctor Svensson, a middle-aged lady who looked in my mouth mumbling “I see, I see...”

Then she asked me:

“Is your dentist young? Her office and equipment, are they all computerized?”

“Yes! How did you know?”

“Dear sir, I think I can fit you with a crown. Would you prefer gold or porcelain? I believe a gold crown would look good on you. A gold crown costs $900, a porcelain crown, $1,200.”

“Gold would be nice,” I replied sheepishly promising myself to light a candle to Saint John Maynard Keynes who suggested the gold standard be replaced with the porcelain standard at the Bretton-Woods Conference in 1944.

John Maynard Keynes was a British economist who played a key role in the signing of the Bretton Woods Agreement in New Hampshire. As a result of this agreement, the gold standard was dropped. The porcelain standard is my invention. If you exchange your money for porcelain, you will be disappointed.

Two weeks later I was proudly wearing my new gold crown. It felt good and I was relieved that I did not have to rinse my mouth with urine.

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Hospital Diaries VII: The Sweet-Smelling Ward

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This is part of a series. You can begin at Part I and follow the link at the end of each installment to read the next. 

Paralysis is a terrible impediment to autonomy. Not only are you not able to move but also you cannot get dressed, wash or go to the bathroom by yourself.

In the Gurney Hall I had to let go of my shirt and pants and I felt humiliated wearing nothing but briefs under the ridiculous patient smock with the wide opening in the back.

You see, clothes not only serve to keep you warm and decent, they also symbolize your social status. In a hospital this hierarchy is quite obvious: doctors wear white smocks and a tie, nurses and orderlies wear pastel-coloured scrubs, and patients lie half-naked at the bottom of the social ladder.

The social ladder is nowhere ever more present than in a fire brigade. Here a firefighter is climbing the social ladder in an attempt to become lead firefighter, a dangerous position with more responsibilities. Exactly why is a mystery to me.

I was sharing my embarrassment with my friend Lucide as she was pushing me in my wheelchair back to my room at the Emergency Overflow.

“You know, when you’re in a hospital, you have to give up your pride,” she said.

Unfortunately, my vanity prevented me from appreciating her wisdom.

The next day, I squirmed for an hour in my stretcher, finally managing to put on a pair of jeans. I could not button them because of my swollen and numb hands but I did zip them up.

As I was basking in this accomplishment, I looked up and saw a tall blonde woman who had been observing me for awhile, standing at the foot of my gurney.

Although she was smartly dressed and not wearing a white smock, I knew she was a doctor simply because she appeared out of nowhere like all the other doctors who came to see me in the hospital.

“Good morning sir. I am Doctor Sveta Tiplova,” she said with a strong Russian accent. “How are you feeling today?”

“Quite well thank you. Are you a neurologist?”

“No, I’m a physiatrist and I’m here to assess your condition.”

I thought I heard “psychiatrist” and for a moment I had a vision of the Soviet Gulag and the snowy Siberian steppes. I feared this new doctor was sent by the “Seagull,” the doctor who thought I was faking my illness, as a first step to having me committed.

Seeing my distress, Doctor Tiplova explained that she was a specialist of the musculoskeletal system. She then proceeded to thoroughly examine my hands, my arms, my shoulders, my neck and my knees.

Physiatry, a medical discipline that became popular during WWII, is about restoring the bones and muscles connexion after an injury otherwise than through a silly Bible camp song.

She seemed puzzled but I could see that she was carefully considering my ailment. She finally said:

“Listen, for what it’s worth I am going to submit your case to the Internal Medicine Department. They might be able to recommend some tests to establish a proper diagnosis.”

After she left I realized that medical science was as much in the dark about the nature of my illness as I was, although it did not have to cope with the pain and paralysis.

For the time being however, Doctor Tiplova’s visit had an instant benefit for me. For her examination, an orderly had moved me to my wheelchair and I was no longer lying down on my stretcher.

I had not been to the bathroom since I arrived at the hospital several days before. My friend Lucide had brought me prunes when she came to visit and I was beginning to feel their effect on my bowels.

Plums (prunus domestica) were introduced to the western world during the Crusades and offered as a perk to crusaders (whence the expression “plum reward”) who left their family and possessions behind to massacre Moors in the Holy Land. Once dried, they are called prunes and can be preserved for a long time. Their laxative properties are legend.

I rolled my wheelchair to the toilet, put the brakes on and painstakingly lifted myself up by leaning on the chair’s armrests. With great effort I advanced the three steps to the bowl and collapsed on its seat.

At once my intestines began to void. Oh! The joy I felt when I realized that at least this part of my body was fully functional! My hands, my arms, my legs and my neck may have given up on me but at this time I swear I was in Paradise!

However, after I was done and had wiped away the traces of my deed I was faced with another challenge. How was I to get up from the toilet? There were holding bars on the wall but my arms did not have the strength to lift me up.

I realized I would have to ask an orderly to help me get up from this awkward position.

There was a chain on the wall with a sign that said “EMERGENCY” in red letters. Humbly I pulled on it and after ten minutes an orderly showed up.

“Oh! Poor sir! You shouldn’t have tried to go to the bathroom by yourself! We could have brought you a commode chair!”

Commode chairs, such as this padded specimen, were popular in the 18 and 19 centuries before the advent of sewers. To each his own, using a commode chair is not a pleasant experience yet it is better than relieving yourself in a diaper.

He tried to pull me up but the bathroom was too narrow. He left to get another orderly and together they managed to make me stand up. The second orderly pulled up my trousers, buttoned them and zipped them up.

Nothing can wound your pride as much as having several people witnessing the embarrassing situation you are in.

As a consolation, I thought of Dante’s Divine Comedy where the author, while travelling through Hell, met an acquaintance who had been condemned to swim for eternity in a sea of excrements because of his pride.

Dante Alighieri is the Italian poet who established the Tuscan dialect as the standard Italian language. The Divine Comedy recalls his climbing the social ladder through the nine circles of Hell, the nine rings of Purgatory and the nine celestial bodies of Paradise. The journey is the reward indeed. Illustration by Gustave Doré, Public Domain

Once I was sitting in my wheelchair, I asked if I could go outside to have a smoke.

“That will not be possible sir,” said the orderly. “We have to put you back on your gurney. We found a permanent room for you in another ward and somebody will take you there shortly.”

As the gurney attendant was rolling my stretcher towards the elevator I was rejoicing because I believed that being transferred to a permanent room meant I was now a legitimate patient. Doctors would soon find the nature of my ailment, prescribe the appropriate treatment and I could go back home.

Alas! When the attendant pushed open the doors of the general medicine ward where I was to stay for the next several weeks a poignant stench of excrements assailed my nostrils.

I thought I was being taken to Dante’s first circle of Hell to be punished for my pride.

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To be continued in Hospital Diaries VIII: Lying in the bed I made

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Hospital Diaries II: The Firefly

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This is part of a series. You can begin at Part I and follow the link at the end of each installment to read the next.

Every time I see a doctor, it seems he ends up making recommendations that are totally unrelated to the purpose of my visit.

I have gotten used to the persistent advice to stop smoking but I just can’t stand it when I’m told to lose weight.

That’s exactly what the good doctor who diagnosed a sprain on my knee said to me. I left his office annoyed but resolved to follow his advice if only to stop receiving unwanted suggestions.

The road to slenderness is simple: follow a balanced diet. Forget about gyms and fitness centres. Sure they will tone your body and build muscles but you will really need to exercise a lot to lose weight. And the more you exercise, the more you risk getting injured.

According to a Canadian study, 40.2% of people aged 20 to 64 who were injured in Canada in 2009-2010 did so practising sports, exercising or walking. Only 16.5% suffered from work-related injuries. This may mean that Canadians are either smart workers or simply lazy.

In Canada, the key to balanced eating is found in Canada’s Food Guide published by Health Canada. This system is based on four essential food groups: fruits and vegetables, grain products, dairy products and alternatives, and meat and other sources of proteins.

The Food Guide explains what constitutes a typical serving for each food group and how many servings males and females need according to their age. If you keep a record of how much you eat, you will lose weight quickly without risking your health.

That’s what I did as my knee was failing me. I lost 40 pounds in three months. Now I only needed to lose another 15 pounds to reach a healthy weight and turn my doctor speechless.

However, I was not worrying about dieting the morning I woke up paralysed in bed.

I was in a bad predicament but I found out I had an unexpected advantage: I had a full bladder.

Despite the pain and because of the urge, after about 30 minutes I managed to move my head, then my fingers, my wrists, my elbows and my legs until I laboriously sat on the edge of the bed.

I relieved myself in my homemade bedpan and then assessed my situation. My twisted knee was not the issue anymore. I could no longer move easily because I was sore all over. It would take a miracle for me to get out of my apartment by myself. My fridge was getting emptier by the day but worse, I was almost out of cigarettes.

I found myself in the middle of the proverbial tunnel looking for a light.

As I was moping about my condition, the phone rang. It was my friend Lucide who, worried, was calling to enquire about me.

I told her about my disablement and that I was running out of supplies. Right away she offered to run some errands for me and said she would stop by that night after work.

In the darkness, a firefly was shining her light to help me find the way out.

The firefly or lightning bug is an insect of the lampyridæ family. There are more than 2,000 species of fireflies. Some females lightning bugs do not fly and look like their larvæ. They are called “glow worms.”

When Lucide arrived at my place carrying several bags of groceries she was struck with consternation, not because she was seeing her friend bedridden and disabled but because of the sorry condition of my apartment.

I had been confined to my bed for several weeks and household cleaning was no longer a priority. Dirty dishes were piling up on the kitchen counter. The floor was covered with objects that I could not pick up because I was unable to bend over. A heap of dirty laundry gathered in a corner of my bedroom and dust was taking over my lodgings.

“What a pigsty! exclaimed Lucide while dropping her bags on my bed. How can you live in such a mess?”

« Erm... Did you bring me cigarettes?”

“They're in the bag,” she answered distractedly while inspecting the jumble in my apartment. “Do you have any garbage bags?”

“In the cupboard, underneath the sink,” I answered while looking for cigarettes in one of the grocery bags.

Lucide disappeared in the kitchen while I tried to unwrap a cigarette pack with my numb fingers. It seemed I had lost all the manual skills I once had.

Lucide came back to the room with a garbage bag and as she saw my shaky hands fighting with the cigarette pack, she cried out:

“What’s with your hands? Look at your knuckles! They’re all red and swollen! This is much worse than a twisted knee, you must see a doctor! Come on, I’ll take you to the hospital!”

With great difficulty I began to dress. I had lost a lot of weight and my clothes did not fit me anymore. I was in a bad shape and I felt weak and distressed.

It took me almost half an hour to manage to get up with Lucide’s help. When I took a first step leaning on my walking cane, it felt as though I had no kneecaps, like my thigh bones were resting directly on my shin bones. I almost passed out from the excruciating pain.

I live on the second floor of an apartment building. As I began to climb down the 14-step stairwell, AC/DC’s Highway to Hell was playing in my head and I had to sit down on the second step to gather my wits.

Highway to Hell is a song about the gruelling conditions of constant touring. Six months after its release, Bon Scott, who sang on the original recording, was found dead at 33 in the back of a Renault 5 after a night of heavy drinking. Show business is a mother who enjoys eating its young.

Finally, I was outside. I had been locked in my apartment for a month and winter had settled in. It was cold and the snow was cracking under my steps. In a last effort, I sat down in Lucide’s car as she started the engine.

I was on my way to the hospital, a harbour for the unfortunates of the world.

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To be continued in Hospital Diaries III: Incubation

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Hospital Diaries I : A Gout-Ridden Wretch

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Ouch! I was awoken by a shooting pain in the middle of the night.

For the fourth time in 30 years I was having a gout attack. By now I knew the story: the sharp pain in the joint at the base of my big toe would fade away after I applied ice packs and took muscle relaxants. This meant I would be lounging in bed for a few days while rereading the works of Guy de Maupassant.

After three days, the swelling had subsided but the pain in my foot remained and I was unable to walk without limping. It was not unbearable so I went back to work where a lengthy report on crystallizing the Canadian public health system through the infusion of additional government funds was waiting to be edited.

“Gout? What’s this? You think you’re Charles Dickens?” joked my friend Aaron when he saw me at the office.

I tried to explain that gout was not some outdated distemper and that its occurrence was on the rise in North America but my colleague was no longer listening: instead he was focusing on the coffee machine sputtering a reluctant espresso into his cup.

The espresso machine is believed to have been invented in 1884 by Angelo Moriondo, in Torino, Italy. The drink gained in popularity worldwide in the 1980’s so much that automatic dispensing machines such as this one are now common in North American public institutions.

Weeks went by, I was still hobbling and to make matters worse, one of my knees failed. I now had an even clumsier gait. I went to a doctor who told me upon quickly examining my swollen knee that it was sprained. He recommended two weeks of rest and to avoid putting weight on my leg.

So I took the last two weeks of annual leave I had left and went back to read Guy de Maupassant’s tales.

As this forced vacation was coming to an end and the time to return to work was approaching, my knee was still hurting. With the help of a walking cane, I went back to the clinic where the doctor summarily felt my puffy knee to immediately declare:

“This is a splendid case of a sprained knee with torn ligaments! You must get to bed my friend! Didn’t I tell you before to get some rest?”

“But I’ve been at home for the last two weeks!”

“In bed? No, no, my friend, stay in bed with your leg raised and apply ice packs four times a day. I am prescribing you some muscle relaxants to ease the pain.”

With the prescription in my hand, I called a cab to take me to the drugstore while realizing to my displeasure that, having used up all my annual vacations, I had to take unpaid leave to attend to my health.

The cab driver was talkative and seeing my cane asked me what happened to me.

“Oh, it’s nothing, I just twisted my knee” I said.

“You should stop smoking!” he replied.

Not impressed by the man’s popular wisdom I was stunned by the effectiveness of the advertising campaign put together by the Government, the health system and the pharmaceutical industry to blame all worldly problems on smoking.

So I went back to bed, determined to heal my costly lame knee. I would get up once a day to use the bathroom and prepare some food. My meals were simple: sandwiches, fresh fruits and vegetables, cereal, cheese, social tea biscuits and water.­­­ I ate lying down. With a razor blade, I cut up a two-litre soda bottle to use as a bedpan to avoid standing up.

The polyethylene terephthalate bottle was invented in 1973 by Nathaniel Wyeth, an American engineer, for pressurized liquids such as soda pop. Carbonation is weak in human urine. However it is surprising how many people use such bottles to relieve themselves when nature calls.

After a week this idleness was taking its toll. My back was aching so much that it was becoming a challenge to sit up in bed or to get up.

I could pull myself out of bed with a strap I tied to my bedroom door while I pushed myself up with my elbow resting on a stool. Every day walking from my bedroom to the bathroom and the kitchen became more difficult.

One morning I woke up laying on my back with my arms extended, completely paralysed.

I was sure this was the first time in the history of modern medical science that a gout attack turned into a sprained knee spreading to the upper body and limbs of an individual.

This is when I realized I needed some serious help.

To be continued in Hospital Diaries II : The Firefly.

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Penelope

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It was a quiet Saturday morning and I was reading while having coffee in the kitchen of my haunted house in the country. I heard a car pull in, so I put down Francis Bacon’s Essays and went to the door.

My friend Monica was outside struggling with a plastic box and two heavy paper grocery bags.

– Hi! I have a surprise for you!

I took the bags and the plastic box from her and carried them inside. When I turned around, there was Monica standing and holding an overweight and very frightened tabby cat.

– This is Penelope. She’s two years old, declawed and housebroken. Isn’t she a sweetheart?

The cat jumped out of her arms, awkwardly landing on the kitchen floor. She looked around, terrified at the strange unknown surroundings, and then dashed through the hallway and up the stairs.

– You know my friends Paul and Andrea? Well, they split up. Andrea is staying with a girlfriend who’s allergic to cats and Paul is leaving on a six-month posting with the military in Germany. So I thought: Geoff is living alone in that huge country house, he needs company! Isn’t that a great idea?

“Uh... Sure, sure,” I said, shocked at the thought of this unexpected and uninvited feline guest.

– You don’t look happy. Come on! It’s going to be fun and good for you! And anyway, it’s only for a few months until Paul comes back from Europe!

– Uh... Sure, sure... Uh, you want a cup of coffee?

– Oh, Geoff, I’d love to but I have to scoot! I’m meeting Jenn, Rosie and Sally who want to show me a cottage we’re supposed to rent for the summer on Lake Patterson! You should come and visit us sometime! We’ll have a barbecue!

Monica gave me a peck on the cheek and rushed out, leaving me with the litter box, a bag of kibbles and the cat’s dish on the kitchen table.

I put some cat food in the bowl and set it down on the floor, and then I went upstairs to look for Penelope.

She was nowhere to be found. I checked everywhere: under the beds, in the closets, in the bathroom. I called her. She had vanished completely.

Cats have the ability to hide at the most unexpected places where adults cannot find them however hard they try. Photo courtesy of Zebra Jay, many thanks!

OK, I thought, it’s understandable. The animal has had lots of changes to adapt to lately; it’s normal that she is traumatized. I’ll let her be, when she’s ready, she’ll come out of hiding.

For three days, I did not see the cat. I knew she was there because the food was disappearing from her bowl and I could see that the litter box was being used but it was as if I had an invisible cat.

Then one night, as I was watching a movie in the living room, I saw Penelope cautiously sneak into the kitchen and go to her bowl. She crouched and started eating. I could hear the crunch of the kibbles under her teeth.

As I was watching her, a mouse emerged from a crack in the floor and scurried to the cat’s dish. The cat stopped eating, looked puzzled as the mouse took a kibble from the bowl and ran back in the floor with its prize. Nonplussed, Penelope returned to eating.

I could not believe my eyes. What kind of a cat was that? I was providing food and shelter to that beast, the least she could have done was help me get rid of rodents!

I was furious. As I got up, the cat saw me and ran back upstairs.

I went after her, determined to discover the freeloader’s hiding place. Again, I looked everywhere until I found her on the top shelf of a linen closet, lying on a pile of towels.

The next day, I went to visit my girlfriend and told her about my new guest and the incident I witnessed.

She laughed and then said:

– After all that cat has been through, she needs stability; she needs a home. Bring her here for a while, I’ll take care of her and the kids will love her.

My girlfriend had two children from a previous relationship: a five-year old daughter and a two-year old son.

For two weeks it went surprisingly well. Penelope quickly ran out of hiding places in my girlfriend’s house because the kids were too good at finding her. Once they found her, they pulled her ears and tail while trying to play with her. Penelope realized quickly though that if she went to my girlfriend, she would protect her from the children. After a few days she even let herself to be petted.

I figured female kinship had won out.

Then after two weeks, Mark, a friend of my girlfriend’s needing a place to crash for a while, showed up with Joe, a very old and meek German Shepherd with a bad case of flatulence.

Penelope did not get along with the new canine visitor and would viciously attack the huge dog when no one was watching. Being declawed, she could not hurt the dog too much but old Joe was so frightened that he regularly lost total control over his bodily functions.

Finally, my girlfriend called me to say I had to take Penelope back. So much for female kinship.

So I went to pick up Penelope and recoiled to my country house.

On our return, I noticed that something had changed. First, she did not run to her linen closet but walked instead. Then that night, as I was lying in bed with the light off, she came into my room, climbed onto the bed and lay down beside me, resting her head on my hand.

I guess she had realized that the large silent country house and its quiet owner were an improvement over noisy children and stinky old dogs.

When Paul returned from Germany six months later, he did not want his cat back. I kept Penelope until her death, ten years later, but never managed to make her understand that she was supposed to catch mice.

Maybe Penelope's problem with mice was ambition: mice were too small. She needed large and dangerous-looking animals as opponents. Who would make a fuss about a mouse anyway?

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Beware of the dog

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“Fiona! Fiona! Vulcan had a nice big poop!”

Nothing pleased me more than being awakened in the morning by my neighbours, Greg and Fiona, letting the whole neighbourhood know that their dog, Vulcan, a Bernese mountain dog of 100 lbs, could relieve himself.

Life had been good for Fiona and Greg. Both held good jobs: she was a legal secretary and he taught welding at a trade school.

The couple owned a quaint little house in the quiet neighbourhood where I lived. To compensate for the small size of the house, Greg, who was a handyman, built in the back a huge wooden deck surrounded by lattice.

Greg and Fiona were in their forties when their only daughter, Danielle, left to live with her boyfriend.

After her departure, Fiona and Greg were enjoying a warm Saturday evening on the deck when they realized that their home felt empty without their daughter.

“We could get a dog,” said Fiona.

In her mind, she imagined a shih-tzu, a French bulldog or a bichon frisé quietly resting in a wicker basket in the living room or sleeping at the foot of the bed. You can imagine her surprise when, a few days later, Greg showed up after work with a two-month-old Bernese mountain dog. The dog was shy, awkward and needed to be house-broken.

The Bernese mountain dog is a member of the Swiss mountain dog family. Despite his clumsiness, he is loyal and affectionate. Some say that around the mid 20th century, the Bernese mountain dog was mixed with the Newfoundland terrier to make him friendlier. Many thanks to Zebra Jay for the photo.

However, she quickly grew fond of the cute black, brown and white puppy with his long curly hair. Greg took it upon himself to train the animal. Every day he would take him for a long walk and after a few weeks he had managed to teach him to relieve himself elsewhere than on the living room carpet.

They decided to call him Vulcan, the name of the Roman god of fire, volcanoes and metals and patron of blacksmiths, because of his dark black hair. Greg knew firsthand that working with metals will turn you dark as a devil.

Months passed by and Vulcan was becoming an impressive dog who could bark very convincingly (much to the neighbours dismay). He would bark when cats, raccoons and skunks visited the backyard. He would bark at strangers although fortunately he became friendly once he knew them.

During summers there were lots of strangers because Fiona and Greg loved to entertain on their large deck and serve large quantities of barbecued beef and pork ribs with lots of wine and beer.

One weekend in June, Greg invited one of his foreign students and a few other friends for dinner.

Manuel was from Guatemala and was a mechanical engineer whose degree and experience were not recognized in Canada. Since he did not have the money to go back to university and repeat the courses he had taken in Central America, he registered for Greg’s welding classes.

Manuel was thin and in his thirties. He had dark, intense eyes and the proud posture of his Catalan ancestors.

The guests arrived and Vulcan started to bark ferociously only to stop once he realized that neither his territory nor his masters were being threatened.

Fiona brought out beer while Greg grilled the mouth-watering pieces of meat. When the guests sat down to eat their salad – served with lots of ranch dressing – a busy, friendly chatter was going on, jokes were flying between hosts and guests. It was turning out to be an enjoyable evening.

After the meal, Greg picked up his guitar and started to play and sing to liven up the party. Everybody loved his rendering of John Denver’s Leaving on a jet plane. After a few songs, Greg put down his instrument to get another bottle of fine Chilean wine from the cellar.

When he came back, the mood of the party had completely changed.

Manuel had picked up the guitar and was playing a Spanish song, compelling and suggestive. The spellbound audience was listening religiously. Greg sat down, stunned by the mastery of his student. Fiona was sitting by his side, mesmerized.

After Manuel finished playing to loud applause, he excused himself and said he had to go and could not play anymore. He thanked the hosts, said goodbye to the other guests and left, going quietly into the night.

A few days later, Greg was coming back from a long walk with Vulcan. As soon as they were in the house, Vulcan started barking and bolted, knocking over the little mahogany table where Fiona kept her African violets. He ran upstairs and kept barking ferociously in front of the closed bedroom door.

Greg swore at the animal as he removed his shoes. The mahogany table laid in pieces on the living room carpet and the flower pots had shattered in the hallway near the stairs. The huge dog would not stop barking even though Fiona was trying to calm him down.

When Greg arrived at the top of the stairs, he had quite a surprise: in front of the bedroom, he saw Fiona standing helplessly wearing only a camisole, Manuel busy buttoning up his shirt and Vulcan growling menacingly.

Since then, the house was sold but from time to time I see Greg walking Vulcan, alone in the park.

In the ruins of the ancient city of Pompei were found mosaics such as this reproduction bearing the inscription Cave canem, meaning “Beware of the dog.” Pompei was buried under ashes and pumice from the Vesuvius, a nearby volcano, in August 79 AD, after 10 days of celebrations honouring Vulcan. According to the legend, Vulcan caught his wife, Venus, cheating on him with Mars. All the cuckolds of the Roman empire diligently venerated Vulcan whose temples were guarded by dogs. Mosaic and photograph © 2012 Martin Clowes (many thanks!)

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The Conductor

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It was the last concert of the tour. Thirty North American cities in 40 days with a symphony orchestra performing works by Debussy and Satie, and The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky as the pièce de résistance.

The conductor would have leaned towards works by Berlioz, Boulez, Varèse, Schœnberg, or any of the younger 20th century composers but the public preferred middle-of-the-road music, and the promoters knew that by playing it safe they would sell out all venues, so that was that.

For all that mattered, the conductor did not mind. At 53 he did not feel like rocking the boat anymore. During his career he had risen to many challenges and he knew he had nothing else to prove.

The conductor did mind however that, as years went by, his tuxedo was getting harder to fit into. He blamed it on the many receptions his duties called him to attend, too many bottles of fine wine, and soft, fat but tasty cheeses.

So for this tour he decided to stick to vegetables – carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, as well as all leafy vegetables – and to stay away from the ranch dressing fountain. Instead of wine, he drank carbonated water.

Vegetables are necessary to a healthy diet. The Canadian Food Guide recommends that a 53 year old male eat 6-8 portions of fruit and vegetable per day. However, balance is the key. Too much greens and not enough fiber might open the gates of Hell. Image: winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This change of diet made him lose a couple of inches around the waist and he felt lighter throughout the gruesome travelling schedule.

However, there were unwelcome side effects.

As food travels through the eight or so metres of digestive tract, its nutrients are transformed into energy and the rest is turned into waste and gas. To cushion the passage of stool the anal canal is equipped with a network of vascular structures, called hemorrhoids, that facilitates a smooth transition.

A diet composed mostly of fruit and vegetable – compounded with mineral water – means that the soft excrement produced gets processed quickly yet unpredictably. Such rapid, frequent and brutal excretion of waste and gas imposes a great deal of stress on the hemorrhoids that tend to react by bleeding, hurting and itching.

For the last ten days, the conductor had been bearing the cross of his attempt at healthy eating.

There were uncomfortable moments, near-incidents, but overall the conductor managed well the crescendo building in his bowels, keeping everything andante and avoiding going allegro.

A conductor’s job is to keep a tight leash on the orchestra members, making sure that each musician plays his or her part in time and on tempo with the right amount of energy and emotion.

A talented conductor holds back musicians’ eagerness, controls their egos, fustigate their laziness, and releases them at the right moment to produce the most dramatic effect.

As the conductor walked to his lectern to begin the concert he was unaware that the harshest challenge of his career lay before him.

The first piece was La mer by Claude Debussy and it went remarkably well. It was followed by Première Gymnopédie and Gnossiennes no. 1, 2 and 3 by Erik Satie – all-time favorites of the public – which were wildly received by the audience.

At Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring things started to turn sour.

During the bassoon solo overture of the first part, the conductor violently and uncontrollably broke wind.

This totally took the conductor by surprise but noticing that the flawless acoustics of the concert hall had fortunately failed to convey the disturbance, he kept directing this difficult composition. The show went on.

But as the first part progressed he found himself struggling to repress the natural urges of his unruly digestive system.

The piccolos stirred his intestinal juices while the cellos and double-bass urged him in staccato to seek relief at once.

However years of classical training helped the conductor maintain the strict discipline necessary to quell the revolution threatening peace in the kingdom of his viscera.

The end of the first part brought respite and the conductor hoped that the quiet beginning of the second part might give him the strength to retain his composure.

He was not counting on the timpani joining the insurrection in polyrythmic fashion, vigorously demanding his surrender against the forces of nature.

With great difficulty he held his ground, mouth gaping, drenched in sweat, tightening his buttocks. To his dismay it felt like the great Nijinsky and the whole Ballets Russes were performing lewd pagan acts inside his large intestine.

With all the energy of despair, clenching his baton, he bravely fought the irrepressible forces while commanding the orchestra members to stick to tempo even through the brisk finale when the buildup inside called for immediate release.

Then he turned to face the audience which was already standing up in an uproar of acclamation.

He was exhausted and refrained from bowing to salute thus avoiding a disgraceful accident – a gesture the press would later interpret as snobbishness.

But at this point he did not care what the critics thought: he had fought the battle of a lifetime and came out as a conqueror.

If only he could make it in time to the restroom backstage...

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The Tax Collector

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That morning when Matthew got up to go to work, there was a gutted pig on his porch.

Disgusted at the sight of the carcass, Matthew called his servant and asked him to remove it and to clean the porch. Then he went to the stable to get his donkey.

In the alley leading to the livery, someone on the upper floor of a neighbouring house threw the contents of a chamber pot out the window. Matthew stepped away just in time to avoid being covered with excrement. When he looked up to see who did that there was, of course, nobody there.

He could hear his donkey braying in its stall: somebody had painted the donkey green during the night.

Passersby laughed at him as he headed to work on his green donkey.

The donkey is known for his laziness and stubbornness. However, it is a more economical way to travel than by camel or by horse.

How he hated his job as a tax collector! Even though the pay was good, it was a permanent position and there were benefits, the contempt and disapproval from his fellow citizens were hard to take.

Since the beginning of time taxation has never been popular. Nobody enjoys paying taxes and everybody believes, whether it is true or not, that state finances are badly managed and that taxes profit the government and the rulers of the country.

The Taxation Office had assigned Matthew to Capernaum, on the shore of Lake Tiberias. The Jews kept calling the lake “Sea of Galillee” not wanting to recognize the authority of Tiberius, the Emperor of the Roman invaders. However Matthew did not work for the Romans: he was a public servant for the Governor, Herod Antipas, a Jew who was raised and educated in Rome.

Herod was praised by some for the great infrastructure works he oversaw and paid for with tax money. Others hated him because they saw him as the Romans’ puppet and as a man of loose morals.

Matthew arrived at work and tied up the donkey behind the building in the shade, and checked that there was enough water in the trough so the animal could drink when the sun was high.

He then entered his office, mentally preparing himself to meet merchants and traders who would shamelessly lie about their income and sales, and then, as soon as he threatened them with a tax audit, would end up begging without dignity.

At lunch time, Matthew left to get his donkey and have lunch under a palm tree before taking a nap.

The animal was lying on its side, still tied up, dead. Somebody had poisoned the water.

Appalled, Matthew stared at the animal’s corpse. He could not believe how cruel people were. He was not looking forward to walking, from now on, once a week, the six miles between Capernaum and Tiberias, the region’s capital, where he had to submit his report to the head office.

In Hebrew, Capernaum means “town of comfort”. However Matthew saw no comfort when he looked around at the customs office, the market with its tables crumbling under the weight of goods and produce, the warehouses bursting at the seams with merchandise waiting to be delivered by caravan or by boat to other towns, other countries.

He looked at the barracks where lodged the Roman soldiers responsible for keeping the peace in town. He knew that they would laugh at him if he reported the death of his donkey and that he would never be compensated.

He saw the inn and decided to have a pitcher of wine.

Smoke from hookah pipes filled the room. The patrons gave Matthew dirty looks as he came in. There was a free spot in a corner near a table where Simon, Andrew, James and John, local fishermen, were talking with a stranger.

The hookah pipe is a water pipe that was invented in India. It is very popular in the Middle East. It is mainly used to smoke flavoured tobacco but also other substances.

The innkeeper slammed the wine pitcher on the table where Matthew was sitting, his face in his hands, crying silently. Matthew poured a glass and, as he was about to drink, he noticed the stranger sitting with the fishermen looking kindly at him.

The way the man was looking at him troubled him and when the stranger asked “Tough day at work?” he could not hold back and started to cry again. The stranger rose and came and sat at Matthew’s table.

The stranger said his name was Yeshua. For whatever reason, Matthew felt safe and told him about the string of bad luck that had befallen him that day.

Yeshua quietly listened to him then said:

– We all have our cross to bear, myself maybe a little more than others. Follow me. Together we will wander on the dusty roads of Galillee. We will eat whatever food people give us and we will sleep in the fields to wake up in the morning drenched with dew. Some day after I am dead, you will write about all that you saw and heard. Then, you will go to Ethiopia where you will be stoned to death by the King’s soldiers for exposing his debauchery. I am sorry; there is nothing more I can do to help. Are you interested?

The Gospel of Saint Matthew recalls the years Matthew, patron saint of tax collectors, accountants and tax lawyers, spent with Jesus. However the account does not say much about how he became an apostle, that’s why Straight from the Bowels is gladly filling the blanks.

Was it the wine? Was it despair? Whatever it was, Matthew thought that the idea of becoming a vagrant and living a life of adventure was better than remaining a taxman.

In a second, his mind was made up.

When Matthew and Yeshua left the inn, Simon whispered to Andrew:

– I told you it would work! We still have some green paint left over. Let’s try again with someone else’s donkey tonight!

Andrew replied:

– All right! Let’s try with Judas, the moron working at the currency exchange who always complains that he is 30 silver coins short!

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