Life, on the Line by Grant Achatz (leveled readers .TXT) 📗

Avenue Beach. I was nervous about how Heather would react to them. Up until this point she had only seen me as the older, successful well-known chef who was flying around the world. In a way I had a dual identity: energetic chef most of the time, followed by providing father some of the time. I wondered how that would make this beautiful, ambitious young woman feel. The boys took to her right away, and before you knew it the three of them were engaged in a full-on seaweed war. She gave Keller a piggyback ride most of the walk home, and then played Wii and drew on pieces of scrap paper into the evening. It seemed to me that the day had gone well—I even had to talk her into letting me put them to bed so we could have some alone time.

PART 3

LIFE, ON THE LINE

CHAPTER 21

I walked into the Alinea kitchen and saw Grant for the first time in a few days. He looked really sick—his hair was matted down and his eyes were hollow. He was gaunt.

“Chef, you look really sick. What’s up?”

He pulled me by my sleeve into the polishing room adjoining the kitchen. “Remember when I told you about that thing on my tongue? Well, a few weeks ago it started hurting again, but this time really bad. It got to the point where I couldn’t eat. So I went to the dentist again and she insisted that I’m biting my tongue at night. I know I’m not biting my tongue.”

He looked ill overall, like it wasn’t just a mouth problem. All I could think of was VD.

“Dude, I am guessing that perhaps your little jaunt in Spain left you with a gift that keeps on giving,” I said with a laugh.

“No. Come on. Seriously. This has been going on for a while. Remember? I told you about it before, but then it went away. Now there’s is a little area that hurts like you wouldn’t believe if my tooth rubs against it.” He removed a wad of gum from his mouth that he had been using as a buffer between the spot and his teeth. “I have to keep gum in there or I can’t talk.”

He seemed almost panicked, or as close to panic as I had ever seen him.

“Let me see it,” I said.

“No. I’m not going to show you my tongue.”

“Come on. What’s the big deal? Let me see it.”

He opened his mouth and carefully stuck out his tongue, then grabbed the tip with his fingers and rolled it to one side. I felt odd standing in an alcove of the Alinea kitchen looking in his mouth, but once I saw his tongue I could tell something was wrong. There was a small white area surrounded by a highly inflamed circle, and his tongue seemed misshapen and swollen. It did indeed look painful. I had no idea what it was, but it didn’t look normal. I figured he had an infection of some kind and told him he should go to the doctor the next day.

“I have been to the dentist three times in the last six months.”

“No. Go to an oral surgeon. Just call the nearest one and go.”

The oral surgeon asked me to open my mouth. Because I couldn’t talk at this point I had typed up a letter detailing the problems and handed it to the receptionist upon arrival. The letter said:

Due to my increased difficulty in talking I figured this would be the best way to fully and efficiently convey what has been going on.

In early 2004 I noticed a very small white dot on the side of my tongue. When it came in contact with my teeth while speaking or eating it was painful. It was sensitive to spicy foods and temperatures. It slowly increased in size and floated in and out of bothering me. Six months later I decided to go get it checked out and went to an oral surgeon in Evanston. He did a biopsy that came back clean. The soreness persisted and eventually started to become a bit of a furrow in the side of my tongue. There were periods of time that it didn’t bother me at all, fluctuating with periods of extreme soreness. But even at its worst it was annoying but tolerable.

However, two weeks ago I woke up and it was extremely sore. When I looked in the mirror I could literally see the imprint of my bottom teeth deeply imbedded in my tongue. At the same time my left gland started to swell. The nighttime clenching continued and my tongue continued to be very sore. I went to the dentist to see if she could file some of the sharper edges off of my bottom teeth; she then fitted me for a night guard. It was for the top teeth and it proved ineffective. I have been fitted for a bottom guard that should be ready in a few days.

Last week my tongue became so sore that I couldn’t talk without buffering my tongue from my teeth with a piece of gum. About four days ago the tongue began to swell near the tip at one of the points that always showed the most aggressive imprints from the grinding. It is now that swelling location that is making eating and talking impossible. Sleeping is difficult as well. The enlarged point is very sensitive. At its worst two days ago, the pain was intense and seemed to travel to my ears, throat, and even the side of my face. Also the last day or so I noticed a lot of saliva, quite thick, although this seems to have lessened as of today.

I have gone through one 10-day cycle of amoxicillin about three weeks ago along with a chlohexidine gluconate rinse, a viscous lidocaine solution, and a fluocinonide ointment. I just started another round of amoxicillin two days ago.

Obviously not being able to eat, sleep, or