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cheating death

With the help of a daily intake of 2400 mg of Advil, 2000 mg of Penicillin and 325 mg of Percocet, I’m making it through the week. If you looked at my calendar for last weekend, you’d see “Wisdom Teeth Removed (death in the process)” but I’m still alive somehow.

I had the wisdom teeth on the right side of my mouth removed last Saturday. The ones of the left? They were removed in December of 1999. Why the large gap you ask? I had an allergic reaction to the Valium I was given to knock me out the first time and woke up mid-procedure having what the docs described as a seizure. That pretty much sealed the deal in not getting the other two removed for a while, and life was good.

Then I ran into a bit of a snag. I’ve got a retainer bar cemented behind my bottom teeth from when I got my braces taken off when I was 17 and I want it out. No dentist will take it out until after I get the rest of my wisdom teeth out. So I had Amber schedule me an appointment with a recommended oral surgeon. She handles making my dental appointments because she’s awesome. Case closed.

I went in expecting the worst, which would be hours of agony and pain, death and destruction, and other bad things that can happen to good people like me. The doc wanted to put me under; he got a big N-O from me. The doc wanted to use laughing gas; he got a big N-O from me. He suggested Novocain; fuck yes please. He gave me the shows and left the room.

Originally I was under the impression that Amber could be in the room, based on the impending freak out I was going to have, but she was told she wasn’t allowed to come in. I asked that she be allowed in in-between the shots and the actual removal. I lost it when I saw her because all of my lifelong fear of dentists came running back to me and how my negative reaction to the sedative last time scared the shit out of me.

The dentist came in to the room in the awkward moment of me clutching Amber and tearing and her crying from seeing me so scared. So once the doc walked in and told Amber she had to leave I was doing my best to control my shaking which has only gotten worse since he stepped in the room. I managed to get it under control and he went forward with the procedure. All in all it wasn’t bad except when he told me that there’s always the chance of permanent nerve damage when this is done. Great.

I drove home with Amber, gauze in mouth, on my way to the couch to ice my mug. Not too much pain, but certainly enough discomfort. I’ve still got some pain in my jaw, maybe two inches away from where my teeth were removed and slight pain down along the jaw line. From the doc’s descriptions I think it’s my lingual nerve on the right side of my face getting used to not having the tooth in there.

One more dental appointment down, I think I have about 3 more in 2006.

Posted on 2006-03-22

the appointment said “murder” but I survived

“oh the devil she must be a dentist, with deep jaw breaker eyes.
Red rope hair, grumdrop eyes and cotton candy thighs”
-The Presidents of the USA

I don’t like the dentist. I’m not without my reasons.

I managed to acquire enough cavities in two of my teeth to require a cap, both of my front two teeth were bonded when I was pretty young. At 16 I had 4 teeth extracted at once. Except the last fact there my mother always told me it was a defect in my teeth because of how many ear infections I had as a child. And then the coupe de grace, while I was having my wisdom teeth out, I had a negative reaction to the sedative they were using on me and I woke up convulsing strapped to the table with my mother in the room freaking out (they told I needed her but didn’t say why so she had no time to prepare herself to see that). They only removed two of the four teeth they were going to.

So if it sounds like I spent a fair amount of my childhood on the dentists chair, it’s because I did.

So when Amber convinced me to go for a tooth cleaning to say I was nervous was an understatement. I wasn’t looking forward to it for the month I had it scheduled. I wanted that appointment to die. I was convinced the appointment wanted me to die. It sat on my online calendar and real calendar like a beacon of death. January 21st is my Ides of March. “BEWARE THE 21ST OF JANUARY” is what a soothsayer would have told me if I ever employed one.

I survived. Barely. Now my teeth are clean and I’m working my way to getting that dental work done that I needed to six years ago when this whole wisdom tooth thing happened in the first place. Then perhaps I can get my retainer out once and for all.

Posted on 2006-01-22
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