HI INTERWEBZ! It's 7:45 on Friday morning and I am one cheery motherfucker!
You'll recall that I was scheduled to have my wisdom teeth out yesterday, yes? And you'll recall that maybe I was a tad nervous about it?
"Nervous" doesn't really begin to scrape the surface. Let me tell you a little something about me - I'm not generally a nervous person.
Wait. Hold up. Let me clarify lest one of my cousins or my husband jump all up in this bitch and scream "LIAR SHE'S LYING SHE IS SO FUCKING NEUROTIC." Ahem, I am not generally nervous about medical procedures.
As I mentioned in my last post, I was scheduled to be induced into labor with my son, and dude, those nerves were a walk in the park compared to the shit I've been feeling this week.
Wednesday night I found myself wide awake in bed for hours, stunned still and quiet with fright. My stomach was flip-flopping, I was sweating like a goddamn pig, and in the end, I eventually just cried myself to sleep. Yesterday morning, I awoke bright and early as usual, and walked around like a quiet, stilted zombie in general terror of what was to come. It didn't matter what I told myself -
"Even if it hurts, it's half an hour and then it's over."
"It won't hurt. It'll be those four painful novacaine shots (the palettal ones are the only ones the bother me) and then nothing."
"Even if the recovery sucks, it's two days and it's over. Easy peasy."
Nothing comforted me. By the time I got to the dentists office (looking, I imagine, like someone walking to the goddamn guillotine) I was soaked in sweat, my eyes were red rimmed from furiously rubbing them to stall the tears, and I was shaking like a leaf. Nevermind my jaw was fucking killing me; at that point, I was perfectly willing to deal with the pain for six more weeks until I could go to an oral surgeon who could put me to sleep.
The wait didn't help, either. They were running behind. The oral surgeon only comes to that office once a week, so when he's there, it's crazy. There's back to back procedures, and if someone runs long or there's an emergency (sorry to anyone I fucked up with my emergency extraction two weeks ago!) shit goes nuts. My appointment was at 12:15, I got there at 11:40, and I wasn't called back until 1:15. Nothing like a long ass wait, punctuated occasionally by patients emerging looking like the bad end of a Rocky fight, to soothe one's nerves.
Eventually though, I did get called back. And the two assistants (I don't know what they are, are they hygienists, or nurse's, or surgical aides or what? Whatever they were, they were sweet, and the one had really awesome hair) took a look at me and conferred for an uncomfortably long time before fetching the surgeon. He came in and asked me what the problem was. I told him. I asked him how bad it was going to be with just the novacaine. He looked at me pitifully, and I much have blanched noticeably. I thought he was preparing to tell me this may, indeed, be the worst physical experience of my life.
Instead, though, he said, "I hate to tell you this, honey, but I really need you to soldier through the pain for a couple weeks. I can't do this while you're pregnant."
He must have mistaken the look of abject relief on my face for shock or something else, because he hurriedly continued on.
"I know this is awful for you at times, but with the level of novacaine I have to give you to make you comfortable, and the undue stress that it, and the surgery itself puts on your body, your heart especially, I am just not confident enough that you and the baby could take it. I could put you into labor right in this chair." (I will not pretend that that didn't sound just a little bit tempting, however)
"I just spoke with your obstetrician's office, with Dr. Kupersmith (my favorite! head of the practice! cute old man with a silly sense of humor! wee!) and we are both infinitely more comfortable giving you enough Tylenol 3 to take as needed until you hit the finish line. At this stage in your pregnancy, not much is crossing the placenta, and there's no risk to the baby as long as you're not overdoing it. I'm sorry, but that's how it's going to have to be."
I have no idea what my face must have looked like, cuz the poor guy looked at me like I was going to up and deck him. I finally cut him a break by relaxing into what felt like the first full smile in days, and was like "DUDE. If that is cool with you and the docs, that is AWESOME with me, because I am fucking TERRIFIED of this!"
And so, all's well that end's well. He gave me an extremely generous prescription for Tylenol 3 which I hope to not need very often (5 days out of 7, regular tylenol cuts it, but on the days where the pain is bad, jesus christ almight is it bad) and a promise that I'll be given priority scheduling as soon as I'm ready.
And so, here I am, still munching on soft foods (chewing crunchy shit aggravates it like you would not believe), but still in what I deem now as glorious possession of all my wisdom teeth.
Now I can look forward to the next 6 weeks of uncomfortable pregnancy with nothing but unmitigated excitement, and, yes, discomfort. But, I'll take that over the fear that's been plaguing me ANY DAY.
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