Covid 19 coronavirus: Simon Wilson: Toothache in a time of lockdown

Tooth fairies in the Bay of Plenty (Pamela Jackson, left, and Lyndsay Currie). Photo / Andrew Warner

At a personal level, I'm not afraid of much right now, apart from getting the disease, of course, and it hitting me hard so I have to go to the hospital and then the ICU and then the ventilator, if they have one, and I can't even write the rest of it. Apart from that.

Apart from that, I'm pretty good. My worries aren't much. I'm afraid my computer will break down: I bash the keys and it's not in the best shape. If it happens, I'll have to write in longhand and phone in my copy like they used to in the days when reporters wore trenchcoats and stuck a pencil behind their ear.

I suspect the boss wouldn't tolerate that, however romantic the tradition.

And I worry about toothache. Used to be, when explorers went into isolation in some place it would be impossible to rescue them from, like Antarctica or Australia, they'd get their teeth pulled first. Just in case. Didn't want the bother of taking a dentist with them, I suppose.

Toothache, right? It's the worst. The PM says the tooth fairy is an essential worker but who let the tooth monster out?

Actually, all major pain is terrible, but the one you've got is definitely the worst when you've got it. And there I was, three days ago, it had started.

I spent a day and a night thinking, it's not so bad, it'll go away. My teeth, they do have problems that come and go. Then I spent a day knowing it was not going to go away, but maybe it wasn't going to get worse. Then it got worse. Throb throb, all that. Pain relief took half an hour to kick in and lasted maybe two hours.

Where exactly was the pain? In your mouth, pain refers itself to other places. That little monster runs around like it's got a mallet and it's bashing the other teeth.

All along the top of the right side of my mouth. No, the molar nearest the front. More painkillers.

And then at 3am this morning I put my tongue on a certain spot on a tooth on the bottom row and it might a well have been a red-hot poker. Aaargh. And then, aha.

It's perversely better when the pain gets worse but you know what it is. Definitely going to the dentist now, I realised. More painkillers.

You phone them, there's an interview. No, I haven't been overseas, don't have symptoms, and a lot more like that. She apologised for the number of questions, I said no, I completely understand. I was allowed to come in: through the back entrance, a locked door, phone when you're here and someone will come down to let you in.

The dentist was great, and the nurse, and the receptionist. I didn't need much, it turned out, which was excellent because they're not allowed to do much. Nothing to create an aerosol.

That's the spray of breath carried on water vapour that sits in the air for, well, they don't quite know how long, and it can be infectious for, well, they don't really know the answer to that either. Better safe than sorry.

Who'd be a dentist right now? You can't ask the patient to put on a mask or even keep their distance. I'm very grateful.

People queue outside a pharmacy in Mt Albert just before the lockdown starts. Photo / Alex Burton

At the pharmacy, you queue outside in the prescribed manner and mostly, I'd say, people are now keen to keep their distance. You see more masks.

Inside, they've pushed aside the racks of all those extra things pharmacies sell to make the business viable, and roped them off. The actual medicines are in the dispensary and on shelves, on the other side of the room, behind a couple of tables. The middle is empty and that's where you stand.

Everything gets wiped down every time. The eftpos is paywave. The frontline staff are masked and very friendly; four or five others, not masked, are on computers, so intent on their work, so close to grim.

It's military. A regimented order, uniforms, an aura hanging in the room of lives at stake.

I think it's also the larger thing: we're close now. Are we close? Are we really going to eliminate this thing? No one wants to slip up, for each individual's sake and because how terrible would it be, to wreck what we have the chance to achieve?

Got my antibiotics. And more painkillers. I'll be fine. Who doesn't love science?

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website