Back in the fall, (you remember fall, right? When the weather was great and the world wasn’t garbage?) my family and I were having THAT fall Saturday. The family hike in sweaters cause it was just a little chilly, the dog not panting from near heatstroke and the kind of day where I was thinking “Tonight, I am going to make chili.”
I didn’t, but the thought crossed my mind. A Pinterest perfect fall day.
Until it wasn’t.
We returned to the car from our hike and I drew in a delightful fall breath of leaves and also something else because I started choking so hard, JD actually took it seriously. When I came to myself, I realized what I had swallowed; part of my tooth.
By Monday I was in the dental chair. Which for me is only slightly less desirable than the electric chair. My dentist came in, took a split second look in my mouth and said “Yup. This one is surgery.”
Aggressive.
And what? No. It's is Den-tis-tree.
Long story short, and I apologize if I lose you in the medical jargon, my tooth broke too close to my gum parts and they would have to get my gum parts down to where they could reach the thing that my new tooth could hook on to. And they do that with a laser.
A gigantic, on loan from NASA laser. *
*Probably
Two-weeks later, I am sitting in the office of a man who specializes in surgery on gums with gigantic lasers. Something –adontist. Nice guy; terrible office music. He explained the surgery to me and said it was better sooner than later. As I do in ANY medical situation, I immediately inquired as to whether or not I could be put to sleep for the procedure. I would get local anesthetic for allergy shots if they would let me. He told me he would prescribe me something for “anxiety,” but that I wouldn’t need much more than just a numbed up mouth.
Fool.
But I am not a gum lasering doctor, so I played along. I picked up my prescription and took it 30-minutes before arriving for surgery a few weeks later. I sat with JD my DD in the waiting room slowly turning to sludge. Everything was tingling and my lucid thoughts were waning. From there, this will mostly be based on eye witness accounts, but some of the highlights are as follows:
· I had to have JD take me to the bathroom which I am counting as a Valentine’s Day celebration.
· When the nurse asked if there was ANY chance I was pregnant, I said yes, but that I wasn’t sure I wanted another baby.
· When they laid me down in the chair, I apparently told the surgeon that his office music “sucks” and that I brought my air pods to listen to a podcast.
· Hand to God, I also asked that they “not steal my air pods if I fell asleep.”
So I managed to bring up a completely false unwanted pregnancy and accuse them of larceny in a short 25-30 minutes.
Ok, now I can pick back up the details.
I woke-up what felt like DAYS later. Surprisingly, I felt amazing. Literally, zero pain and my face didn’t look swollen at all. I knew it. I am a medical marvel. I had printed off to-the-letter instructions for my aftercare for JD, who had gone to take Bee to a practice. I texted him and asked him to bring me Frosty for my sad mouth.
“I can, but you should be fine.”
What the hell? DO NOT mansplain my own oral pain to me, sir. I may not be in pain or visibly swollen, but I sure as heck deserve a Frosty for my trouble. Who does he think he is….
“Katie, you didn’t have the surgery.”
I mean, his talk-to –text is seriously jacked. Of course I had the surgery. I took the pill and was scheduled to have the surgery, so I clearly had the surgery.
Whatever. Still groggy and now even more confused, I went to finish the podcast I had been coherent for all of .2-seconds of earlier that day. Where are my air pods… sonofabith…. They stole my air pods.
EVEN WHEN I ASKED THEM POLITELY NOT TO!!!!!
I am a mess; like someone in a movie that wakes up with amnesia and has to put their life together using clues. Find my air pods, explore my mouth with every mirror in the house. WHAT HAPPENED TO ME TODAY?? JD gets home, with a Frosty as an insurance policy on his life, and tells me the whole sordid thing:
Yes, I went back for surgery, told them their music sucks, asked them not to steal my personal property and started a podcast. JD went back to the waiting room where he was told the surgery would last about 30-45 minutes. He said he got into some work and when he looked up, it was about an hour later. Shortly after, the surgical assistant came out and said “Mr. Sanderson, can you please come back with me? There have been some complications with your wife’s surgery.”
What he has told me he found that day in the surgeon’s office, he cannot tell me without obnoxious laughter. Apparently, I had an uncommon and VIOLENT reaction to the “anxiety” medication. If you believe JD, the surgeon and the surgical assistant (some nurses, a pharma rep and the office manager), I went CRAZY.
Full “Girl, Interrupted.”
JD said that it was hard to put it all together at first, because I seemed totally fine, but I kept asking him to help me “Unzip my skin.” When I pressed for more information on that he said, “I don’t know, other than you thought your skin was too tight and you needed it unzipped.”
Fair enough.
Moreover, it seems that each time the surgeon went to open my mouth, I told them I was going to throw-up.
At one point there was some hallucinogenic bargaining like “I’m actually fine. I’ll just keep the tooth the way it is.”
And rounding out the crazy anxiety med episode was me talking about how much I hate his music. Really driving the point home.
So, there we were.
No surgery.
Tooth still broken.
I asked what the plan was going forward, outside of a psychiatric hold, obviously. JD said I was supposed to call them on Monday to explore my options. Thankfully I had a whole weekend reserved for what I thought was bruised gums that I could now use for bruised ego.
On Monday, I called first thing.
“Hi, it’s Margaret Sanderson, I don’t know if you remember me….”
**Pause while Office Manager almost dies from laughter and quickly shares the joke with the whole office.**
Turns out, my options were option. Singular. I would have to go completely under.
Meaning, they were going to have to bring in an actual, for real life anesthesiologists to put me so far out so that they could operate on my gums. Like a dog having to go under to get its teeth cleaned at the vet.
Luckily, I was able to get it scheduled a week later. On his off day. I am such a dental and psychological problem that it would take a day that the office was closed to the public to get it done.
Surgery day 2.
I arrived with JD as DD again and within minutes, the whole shutdown office is filled with laughter. Everyone from the office manager to the surgeon laughing and regaling me with tale of the fateful prior surgical attempt.
Yes, hilarious.
They took me back to a different chair in a different part of the office. The chair was covered in warm blankets and there was a weighted blanket for me when I laid down. Oddly spa-like. And the best part? NO MUSIC WAS PLAYING.
The anesthesiologist came over, introduced himself and said “So, what happened to you last time?”
Um, were you not JUST here? This whole office might as well have been standing around a pony keg roasting me like it was Comedy Central.
Um, I freaked out on drugs, accused a professional surgeon of petty theft, tried to unzip my skin like it was the skin suit from Silence of the Lambs….“faked” a pregnancy, passed judgment on someone’s musical taste, apparently lied about having had surgery… you want the deep cuts or just the hits?
But I didn’t say that.
“Well, I think I just have a very delicate threshold to toxic street drugs. “
He looked into my SOUL and said, “Well that is awful. I am going to be here, the WHOLE time watching you to make sure that you are in a deep, peaceful sleep, that everything goes smoothly with the surgery and then when it is all done, I will wake you up and help get you to your car. This won’t take long and you can go home and rest the whole weekend. You have been through so much. You deserve to have a good surgery.”
WORTH. EVERY. DOLLAR.
Did I mention that the anestheoligist was “at my own expense?” It was.
After that, like Biggie said, “It was all a dream.”
I woke up what felt like DAYS later with excruciating face, neck, back and was that kidney pain? My hand was throbbing where they had put in the IV. My face was so swollen, I looked like fat Gwyneth Paltrow in Shallow Hal. OMG, the pain! Somebody get me a Frosty!
There was no confusing that this time, I had made it through the surgery. Again, a medical marvel. JD said it was a hot 45-minutes and we were headed back out to the car where I was asking everyone what they wanted Santa to bring them for Christmas and asking JD if we could go to the mall to get some lip gloss and a pretzel.
It was another month before I could finally put this tooth business to rest. I had to wait to heal before they could fix it. I had learned to eat on the other side of my mouth and endured the antibiotic rinses. I don’t want to call myself hero, but would understood if you did.
A week before I was set to have my tooth all fixed, we were eating dinner when I had that same, choking feeling.
No.
Not again.
But yes, again. On the other side. They had warned me of a “mirror image” injury when I took to overcompensating with the opposite side of my mouth.
WHY ME?!?!?!?
There I was in the dentist chair again. In the most twisted and sick version of Groundhog Day ever. She came in, plopped down and looked in my mouth for a split second.
“It’s not too deep. I can fix this.”
I breathed the heaviest sigh of relief thinking the nightmare was finally over. Just moments before she said, "Good thing, right? I heard about your last surgery."
Omg! I’m in tears!
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