Waaaaah Waaaaah Waaaaah
I think a sufficient amount of time has finally passed so that I can whine about this, AND WHINE I WILL.
Prepare yourself.
Three weeks ago, I finally had no choice but to show up for a dentists appointment. I had already cancelled two appointments because of legitimate scheduling conflicts, but the jig was up. It was time to say goodbye to two of my beloved wisdom teeth.
It was really very unfair that we didn't get to spend more time together. One of them had really never done anything to me. The other was crumbling apart, so it would have kicked itself to the curb eventually. But, alas, my dentist needed to pay for college tuition for his kid, so he ripped those suckers out right after he finished two root canals.
Oh, yes. All in one day. Two root canals and two wisdom teeth. THAT is how much I hate myself, apparently.
The thing is that it turned out to be a very good thing I did it all at once. I very barely survived those three hours in the dentist's chair so there's no way I would have gone back for another appointment.
The jerk dentist apparently ENJOYS ripping teeth out of people's faces because he kept smirking. When he disappeared for ten minutes, I was sure he was in the back room ordering the new car he was going to buy with the profits from torturing me.
My "favorite" moment of the appointment was when he tried to warn me about what was about to happen. "You might hear some weird noises," he told me.
"The hell I will," I replied as I slammed my earbuds in and cranked the volume on my iPod. "WHAT'S THAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU."
The problem, however, is that it wasn't that you hear the weird noises with your ears when at the dentist. You hear them with your brain because the sound is coming from your brain. Nightmares, people. Nightmares.
For the record, the appointment did not come complete with happy drugs. "You can take Advil," he said. "If it gets really bad, you can call me," he continued.
I wanted to demand some percocet, but how do you do that? "I'M NOT LEAVING UNTIL I HAVE PERCOCET!" At that point it would have come out as "OHM MM MMN MMMIM HH MM HHMM!" He probably would have interpreted that as "Go ahead and tip yourself 50%!"
So, the appointment sucked (UNDERSTATEMENT), my dentist is an evil man, and BY THE WAY, I TOTALLY WOUND UP WITH AN INFECTION.
And then a dry socket.
Everything that you're thinking right now is exactly right. It did suck in a very special sort of way that can't quite be expressed with words.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go make my kid brush her teeth about ten more times. Nobody should have to endure the torture that comes from tooth decay.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Reader Comments (8)
HORRIFYING. OMG. I will now have nightmares. I SHOULD HAVE GONE BACK TO BED BEFORE CLICKING. I think I might be crying.
You deserve something special after such torture. Good thing I'm taking you on a date soon!
I feel your pain, truly I do. I had almost the same exact scenario, minus the two root canals. I ended up in the hospital for emergency surgery to remove the abscess from my throat because the antibiotics didn't work. So, {{{hugs}}} from someone who understands how truly sucky your experience was.
Oh my! No drugs?! Any one of those procedures by themselves warrants a pain pill. Next time insist on it (arrange for it) BEFORE the surgery starts (yes - you had surgery). Less pain leads to a better recovery. Hope you now are on the way to feeling better.....
Your dentist is totally evil. He should have given you at least some Vicodin to get you through the first few days. Also I can't believe you stayed awake for all of that. If there is ever a next time you need to find someone who put you under for it.
Okay, back to the to-do list, "find a dentist and make appointment"...maybe next week.
You think your dentist is bad? Try getting a root canal while he listens to conservative talk radio. I couldn't decide what hurt more: my mouth or my brain from being forced to listen to Glenn Beck. That HAS to be a violation of the Geneva Convention, right?
I'll see your dry socket and infection and raise you a broken jaw. That's what happened to me when I had an impacted wisdom tooth removed. I kept having pain for weeks after the removal and kept going back to the oral surgeon. He re-did x-rays, had his partner do a consult, kept giving me drugs (as that was the only way I could function), and I was still hurting. Finally after two months, another x-ray revealed a break in my jaw near the extraction site, and an infection near the break.
I needed another surgery to clean out the infection, and had my jaw wired shut for 6 weeks. Additional bonus items included having a pic line for daily antibiotics for 2 weeks, then 3 more weeks of ass-flavored antibiotics. I know the flavor because liquid antibiotics are all formulated for children, so my dosage was 2 shot glasses full, twice a day. The second surgery was 3 days before Christmas, leaving me to enjoy Christmas Eve dinner in my mother-in-law's bathroom shooting her delicious crab and tomato soup into the tiny gap between my molars and the back of my mouth with a syringe because I was too inexperienced and embarrassed to eat like that in front of anyone.
Your dentist sounds like a saint.
P.S. On the plus side, I lost 32 lbs. while drinking milkshakes every day. :)
You need to come meet my dentist....besides being eye candy, he gave me a prescription for VALIUM to take BEFORE I go see him. Very nice man. My kids even love him.