Friday, April 23, 2004

I am alive and, for the most part, whole. The wisdom teeth extraction went well however; the process leading up to the surgery was a little problematic.

The procedure was schedule to take place at 10:30am. I showed up at approximately 10:15am. After forking over $1898.00 I noticed that there only one chair open in the entire waiting room. I let dad take the seat since he was my designated post-op driver. After a half hour dad remarked that one oral surgeon would not be enough to take care of this many patients. Twenty minutes later he left to get some coffee and check his email since it appeared I wasn't getting in anytime soon. After thirty more minutes I was the only one left in the room and was becoming quite agitated. Apparently the receptionist noticed my reaction and deemed fit to tell me that I would have to wait two more hours due to "complications" with the earlier patients.

I begin to wonder what sort of complications could justify making Bob wait nearly four hours. Then it hit me, the stupid bitch had a brain complication and decided to schedule four people at the same goddamn time. At least my growing ire masked the equally growing fear of being unconscious.

At approximately 2:00pm I was lead back to the room where the procedure would take place. The surgical aide took my blood pressure and hooked me into a various pieces of monitoring equipment. She then attempted to put in an IV. Sadly, I lack veins, or at least ones that a seasoned professional can find, and was poked no less then four times unsuccessfully. She left in order to find someone who could find a viable vein.

While she was gone I overheard three young ladies, who based upon their appearance and age, were new at this job. They were discussing several cases where a patient went in for a routine dental procedure, such as a root canal or wisdom teeth extraction and ended up suffering a heart attack, stroke and in one case notable case died. Honestly that wasn't something I needed to hear at the time, and so my pulse increased fairly rapidly and caused the monitor make a loud BEEPPPPPPPPPP noise. Several attendants ran in and asked if there was problem, I shook my head no and mouthed a silent prayer to God.

Soon after another aide arrived in the room, attempted to alleviate my fears with some benign humor and actually managed to successfully insert the IV. It only took her two tries. After this point everything is hazy, I do remember speaking to the surgeon. Subsequently he barked out several medical sounding terms and then I drifted off to la la land. While dreaming I was certain that this entire event was in fact a game of Warcraft III (a very successful computer strategy game) and that it was my duty to build several legions of orcish warriors to repeal the undead hordes.

When I came through everything seemed normal. I didn't see a lake of fire or a celestial stairway so death seemed out of the question. An elderly nurse took my hand, asked if I was ok, took my blood pressure and lead Bob out into the hallway. She was trying to prop me up but as we all know from physics a frail old woman is not going to support the massiveness that is Bob. I was aware enough to guide myself along the wall until I reached dad. He proceeded to help me outside, where upon I claimed to be fine and managed to reach the van unassisted. Years of waddling, or as RD once said "walking like I had a stick up my ass" came in handy as it turned out to be a fairly good facsimile to walking while under the effects of anesthesia.

I looked into the mirror and discovered that my normally luscious lips now appeared Bubba-like. I looked like Meg Ryan after a recent botox treatment. Dad only had to stop once on the way home. I needed to spit out a mouthful of blood. On the way into the house I vomited up quite a bit more blood and realized that I still had use of my taste bloods. You see blood, especially the regurgitated variety, tastes really bad. Anyway that is my story of the wisdom teeth.

One day later I feel almost normal except for the blood oozing out of my nose at regular intervals. Was it worth it? Yes because those fuckers had been hurting for almost two years and since I didn't lose my ability to taste or more importantly die, I am able to deal with the minor inconveniences.

Go to Hell