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I was just in the kitchen getting my coffee, and I heard Gypsy's stomach growl. She was laying in the LIVING ROOM. She got a cookie.
I'm grateful for the third cup of coffee I've had in over a week. The first one was on Thursday, the second yesterday.
I've taken more than a week off from working out, and I'm STILL whining about having to get on the damned elliptical this morning.
It's too early for funny.
It's too early for singing.
2003 - No entry.
2002 - The wedding entry.
2001 - A day in the life.
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July 17, 2004
Hi
Despite all the fussing I did before (and all the fussing I continue to do, actually), I seem to be surviving this wisdom teeth extraction experience. Surviving, but NOT enjoying. Which wouldn't be normal. I'm miserable, so I'm normal? Yeah, that sounds about right.
Last Friday, after a short and nervous wait in the lobby, and a short and nervous goodbye to Calvin, I was lead into the exam room. One rather large middle aged man was passed out on a 'recovery bench', a row of which are situated along one wall right in the hallway of exam rooms, snoring fit to be tied. And I'm thinking, bench? Where's my private room with a bed so I can come back into consciousness (and drool) in privacy and peace? The hell with some bench that strangers can pass by and laugh at me, when I can't even see straight enough to kick their ass for it.
They also need to soundproof the walls of the exam/surgery rooms at my oral surgeon's. I was lying in the chair watching CNN and trying to distract myself from the fact that I was about to be stuck with a needle, forced to breathe gas, and put my life, well-being, and sense of decency in the hands of a total stranger while I'm unconscious. So, I was tense. Then, from the room next door, comes this incredible and God-awful WAILING. A woman, sounding like a combination of an air-raid siren and a dog left out in a storm. Howling, I kid you not. She went on and on and ON, to the point where I was all, "Just give her some more gas, already!" I can only assume that she woke up halfway through her procedure and freaked out. She sounded like she was in pain and terrified and mostly out of it. Well, yeah, I would too. And actually, did. I'm thinking to myself, "There's the guy snoring in the hall, and the wailing woman, and drooling zombie-like people being lead back and forth in various stages of consciousness, and what kind of place IS this???"
The oral surgeon was politely distracted and not interested in getting to know the myriad of patients that pass by him on a daily basis. He stuck the gas cup over my nose, and started looking for a vein to put in the IV. He looked on the inside of my right arm, couldn't find one, looked on my left arm, couldn't find one, and politely and distractedly refused my suggestion to use the back of my hand, where I've had IV's successfully inserted before. He went back to the right arm. And back to the left. Tap tap tap with his fingers, snap-tug of the rubber band around the arm, and finally the stick of the needle on the back of my left hand. After, like, ten minutes of looking. Told ya, man. There may be no veins in my arms, but there are WORMS on the backs of my hands.
I remember doing the deep breathing exercises my massage therapist taught me, and reminding myself not to fight the gas (which is, I think, one of the reasons I had such a bad time of it last time). I felt like I never really went completely under, at least in my mind. There was a long tunnel with itty bitty people at the end of it, and conversation that was accelerated to high-pitched bat squeaks, and then slowed waaay down to the point that I remember thinking I was among the Ents. The next thing I remember, I'm upright on a recovery bench, leaning against Calvin.
Calvin says the next time I'm going under anaesthesia, he's bringing a video camera. Apparently, I was a comedic genius while coming out of it. I, of course, remember nothing, so I think he's making it all up. I am said to have sat on the recovery bench, staring into the mirror on the wall opposite me, giggling and covering up first one eye, then the other, and trying to focus my vision. I declared, "I've felt like this before!" I asked Calvin what time it was, three times in five minutes. The nurse lead me to the x-ray as soon as I was sufficiently recovered to stand up, and I apparently shuffled my feet in tiny baby steps the whole way, without actually picking my feet up. And I ran into the wall (Calvin heard the following - ":shuffle shuffle: "Ow!" ~giggle~" At which point he cracked up.). When Calvin told me about that, I wasn't happy. I mean, wasn't the nurse supposed to be helping me along? Why the hell did she let me run into a wall??
I don't remember the drive home, I don't remember getting undressed and into bed, and I don't remember opening the little envelope, discovering my teeth inside, and saying, "Oh, wicked!" I DO remember several hours later, being helped out of bed, feeling overwhelming nausea, and being helped to the toilet to yack. The gauze was gross, the blood was gross, and the pain sucked. I had nothing to eat or drink at all on Friday.
Saturday morning was much better. I still had the gauze going on, but I could sit up and sip ginger ale, and the ice pack was my best friend. I slept on and off all day, and Calvin took excellent care of me. I think he was almost as worried about the whole procedure as I was. It's nice to have someone worry over me.
By Sunday the bleeding had stopped, so gauze was no longer necessary. I felt well enough to shower and brush my teeth, and felt significantly more human. I had a dull throbbing in my lower jaw and swelling along the left side of my neck, but I assumed this was normal. I had a lot of Jell-O and pudding, and read a book on the couch (while poor Calvin did yardwork in 108 degree weather).
Monday I was back to work, and that sucked. I was pretty uncomfortable, my eyes were really sensitive to light, and I had a constant ringing in my ears. I suffered my way through an all-day meeting, and by the end of the day felt as tired as if I'd run a marathon.
Tuesday I stayed home from work. I had the most God-awful headache I've ever experienced. I could barely open my eyes. The throbbing, piercing pain in my jaw was so intense that I used one of the prescription pain pills the doctor gave me - something I'd managed to avoid since the very first day. I slept until 10:30, stayed up until 12:30, slept until 4:00, stayed up until 8:00, then slept until Wednesday morning. The light sensitivity and ringing ears continued. I went to the scheduled check-up with the oral surgeon, and he informed me that I had dry socket in both of my lower extraction sites.
Delightful.
He packed the holes with gauze soaked in the MOST DISGUSTING TASTING dressing, in order to cover the exposed nerve endings and bone. The pain went away almost immediately (after he stopped POKING THE HOLES with his forceps), but GOD, THE TASTE. It infiltrates everything I eat and drink. It surges unexpectedly in a nasty taste explosion, and causes me to violently and reflexively grimace at random moments and freak out the people I'm meeting with ("What's with the face?" "My mouth tastes like ass."). But at least the pain is gone.
And that's the state of affairs today. I have to have the dressings changed out every other day, until next Friday, at which time the oral surgeon will evaluate the sockets and determine if I have sufficiently healed, or if I need to continue the dressings. I can't eat foods that "generate a lot of debris", for fear of dislodging the gauze. So there goes my plans for a steak dinner on my birthday next Tuesday. I've had scrambled eggs, tomato soup, Malt-o-Meal, yogurt, jell-o, pudding, baked potatoes, and milk in a boring rotation for over a week. Last night I managed some broccoli cheese soup and two southwestern eggrolls, cut up into teeny tiny pieces and nibbled with my front teeth, at Chili's.
Today I start working out again. By this time next Friday, I bet I'll have lost ten pounds since the start of this. Silver lining, people.
I'm off now, to get on the elliptical, and follow that up with 7.5 minutes of sun-bathing (Arizona. 110 degrees. Not conducive for extended laying out.). Then a shower, and Marie and I are going to start her school clothes shopping and my birthday clothes shopping. I have a zero-balance Gap card burning a hole in my wallet.
I did want to mention that even though the act of turning 30 may or may not suck (I haven't decided yet), birthday month is a swell thing. I've been getting packages in the mail. One from Dawn, whom I love more than chocolate cake, who sent me a couple of books off of my Amazon wish list. And one from Michael and Lilly - lilac scented lotion and body spray, over which I squealed and then immediately doused myself. Oh! The kids sent more pictures of the baby... I'll scan and post them soon. Next week, my girlfriends from work are taking me out to lunch (I can't chew! ::sob::) and then for a pedicure, and a party at the end of the month. Later this weekend, I intend to bake myself a birthday cake and decorate it with the words, "30 Sucks", or "Fuck 30", I haven't decided yet. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting, just like my mom used to make when I was little.
I leave you now with a scan of the hysterical note that Marie left for us to find this morning - the little pictures she adds to enhance the narration just kill me. She does this a lot - during the summer, she stays up until the small hours of the morning, and the next day we often get some sort of written discourse of her nocturnal adventures. I ought to save them - I think I'll start. We'll miss this stuff, when she leaves home.
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