“The narcotic is important. It will fool your brain into thinking we didn’t saw into your jaw bone and dig around and then take more stitches in your mouth than are in the jeans you’re wearing. The narcotic will also make you so nauseous that you won’t be able to keep the pain medication down. To solve that problem, put this dissolving tablet under your tongue. It will quell the nausea, but is more expensive than caviar and will cause a migraine, which should be somewhat alleviated by the ibuprofren and acetaminophren you’re taking in horse-like amounts. Do not be medicating with 12-year single malts, since alcohol combined with these drugs will make your stomach bleed and destroy your liver and/or kidneys. You’ll also need this antibiotic, to stave off flesh-eating infection that’s likely to occur anytime your jaw bone is hacked into. You must also rinse with this toxic antibiotic mouthwash, but you may not spit. Just swish gently over the sink and then drool. Do not neglect to brush and floss your remaining teeth during recovery. The narcotic and nausea pills will cause severe dehydration and constipation that will linger long after you cease to use them. Drinking plenty of water will not help, but cannot hurt. Shards of bone may work their way out of the incision site. Do not be alarmed unless this is significant.”
Any questions?
This came right after they tried to fit me with my Flipper, two clip-on teeth designed to fool everyone into thinking I’m not a toothless woodchuck. I may not chew on my Flipper. It is for cosmetic purposes only. When I am out to dinner, for instance, I am to discreetly remove it and lay it on my bread plate beside the butter.
They have just extracted a tooth and done two bone grafts, preparing for eventual implants. I am woozy and swollen and traumatized. I did not opt for sedation, fearing loss of personal control and subsequent death. Half my head is dead with Novocain. The oral surgeon asks me to bite down on the Flipper to make sure it feels OK.
I give him a look, from down there in dental hell. “I can’t feel a *(&$#^ thing,” I respond, as politely as possible, my mouth stuffed with gauze. My words are slurred and inarticulate. He has no *(&$#^ idea what I’ve said.
When all is done, they praise me for being such a Good Girl. They say Patient, but they mean Girl. In this instance, I don’t mind being patronized; it’s always wise to keep those who saw into your living flesh happy. Thank you, Sir! May I have another?
All that, to say IOU days #59-61. I’m a Good Girl; I’m good for it.
For me it’s only liquids for 24 hours, then soft foods for two weeks, no spitting or straw use for two weeks, wear an Essix (plastic thing covering all my top teeth — instead of a flipper) almost all the time for two weeks, then just eight hours a day. Oh, and I can’t blow my nose for four weeks! Of course all that goes along with gentle swishing of Chlorhexidine and Nystatin three times a day and more vitamins and antibiotics than I thought possible. I feel I got off lucky. So far. Then there’s Surgery: Part 2 in a few months.
I made a chart of what I can, cannot, and should do for the next six months.
Misery loves company :-)
Good to see you back — I figured the Dental Trauma was happening. So sorry!
So I’ll share my story. Six years, just after starting my job, I was diagnosed with a hernia. My GP, a guy I like quite a bit, recommends I go to this particular surgeon, who happens to a crusty old fucker. He says that there is a laproscopic option, which is very non-traumatic, but he prefers the old way, two eight inch incisions up your belly (like they were removing caviar from my belly), and then a rubber tube inserted into the wound that slowly drips morphine over the damaged area like I was fucking escarole in Sprouts mister display.
I say I’ll get back to him, and promptly find a young surgeon at the teaching college. She says it’s up to me, but recommends the laproscope. I went home with a quarter-inch incision below my navel and no pain meds. I’m on my feet in four days or less.
Upshot: my department secretary’s husband had the old guy do his hernia the Old Way, and was in litigation for malpractice with the guy for years, because not only did the tube not work, but the hernia burst back open. I don’t know if he collected on that, since it was a Worker’s Comp procedure in the first place.
I don’t know what the moral of the story is. Something about grapes falling into the river, or ants surviving the winter. Whatever.
Get better soon is what I’m saying.
The moral is to make sure all your hired professionals are younger than you are. They’re sharp, they see well, they think clearly, they embrace new ideas. Also, with luck, they’ll out-live you, so you don’t have bother with breaking in new ones.
I’m so sorry for your trauma. Yikes! Heal well and hopefully this will all seem a dream in the not too distant future.
I figure it’s like childbirth (and child-rearing) — pain and suffering for the greater good. Except the results of dental work are more reliable :-)
So sorry for you! Remind me to tell you about the old guy who took out Daughter #1’s wisdom teeth. He had retired (or died?) before #2 had hers out, or we’d have gone back to him! (Instead of the young guy). Just saying, sometimes us oldsters will surprise you. Get better soon.