I think maybe the only person who truly grasped my emotional condition following yesterday’s trip to the dentist was my mom, whose lone question about my post-tooth-pulling adventure was, “Why aren’t you in bed?”
There’s no way around it; it totally, completely sucked.
My fabulous new dentist, of course, wasn’t the person who actually yanked out the tooth. That duty fell to a guy who I presume was an oral surgeon. (Which leads me to this question: If some random dude is going to pull a tooth out of my skull, don’t you think he could at least introduce himself first?)
Here’s what happened. They led me back to a generic exam room and the assistant/tech guy took my blood pressure. “Whoa!” he exclaimed when he saw the readout was 150/90. (Since I get this checked on a regular basis, I can tell you that’s REALLY high for me.) I told him it was much higher than my norm, but that that didn’t surprise me. He didn’t immediately grasp why, so I told him I was totally freaking out about this whole “let’s yank a tooth” business. “Aww, it’ll be easy,” he said. He decided to recheck my blood pressure … and the second time, it was up to 160/110. Again, not surprising (to me).
That’s about when the dentist came in to give me the initial numbing-up shot to the gums. I’ve never really freaked out about local anesthesia delivered via a needle; the one time I’ve had that done before, it just didn’t hurt all that badly. Not so yesterday; while it wasn’t initially bad, the amount of anesthesia he pumped in required him to jiggle the needle around … ugh. It wasn’t pleasant … but not, I’d say, horrific. That came later.
So they both left me for about 15-20 minutes to go work on someone else while I got good and numb. I was getting alarmed sitting in the chair because I kept waiting for my cheek to become that big ol’ lump of unmoveable numbness, and it just wasn’t happening. Sure, I was feeling a bit numb, but I knew that if he started poking around, it was going to hurt.
Probably best that, while I was sitting there waiting, I had no idea what was coming next. When they did come back and I was in the reclined-and-waiting position, out came this ginormous needle that had a squiggle in the middle of it, so it was all curvy and crap. The dentist said, “OK, this is going to be a sharp pain in the back of your mouth,” and sure enough, BAM! It REALLY hurt. For a long time. The dentist said to his assistant dude, “See how it’s blanching?”
Blanching? BLANCHING??
Seriously, guys, do I honestly need to hear that?
And here’s another thing … while they were waiting for me to numb up some more — those last shots went straight into the bones and roots area — Mr. Suave Dentist picks up the focused x-ray of the tooth in question, points at the longish root on one side of the tooth, and says, “Man. This is going to be really hard.”
Sheer panic set in about right then. I mumbled, “Please, don’t tell me that.”
I mean, it’s not like I was sitting with a huge smile on my face, normal blood pressure, calm as a sleeping baby, to start with. I was genuinely freaking out, and then the dumbass dentist chuckles at how this is going to be a hard tooth to extract.
The assistant dude kinda laughed and said, “What? You want us to lie to you?”
“Yes, of course, ALWAYS,” I replied. And meant it.
The dentist made reference to how hard an extraction this was going to be a few more times for good measure, then out came the pliers.
“These aren’t big enough,” he said to his assistant. “Can you get me the bigger ones?”
By now, I’m fairly sure my blood pressure was soaring to heights previously unknown. And that’s when I very nearly began to feint.
The actual extraction was so terrifying and horrifying to me that I honestly remember only little slices. I know most of the time I was laying in the chair, trying not to cry (not necessarily succeeding, mind you), while a loud voice in my head kept screaming, “WHY ARE YOU AWAKE? YOU SHOULD BE KNOCKED OUT. WHY DID YOU DO THIS? WHY DIDN’T YOU INSIST ON BEING KNOCKED OUT?” Over, and over, and over. My body was shaking uncontrollably. Panic took over.
I heard them say, “You’re going to feel a lot of pressure, but it shouldn’t hurt.” I groaned. “Does it hurt?” they asked. I shook my head. Then moaned again.
“You might hear some cracking noises,” they said. I groaned louder. “Does that hurt?” they asked. I shook my head. Then moaned again.
The tooth came out a few seconds later, and after asking if I could keep my tooth and barely hearing (through my fog of abject fear and panic) the dentist say something about not drinking out of a straw or having sodas or something, I was on my way.
After trying a few people who weren’t answering, I called my mom and let the emotional floodgates open. I was seriously freaking out.
Still, I did calm down eventually … and after a night of little restful sleep and then that sort of overexcitement and panic, I was ready to do little but go to bed.
That’s not what happened — I didn’t go immediately to bed, because I had an interview at 5:00 (leaving me a luxurious 90 minutes to recouperate, lucky me) and then picked up dinner en route back to the house, you know, since I was out and everything.
The actual tooth is disgusting and hideous, but I’m just really glad that it’s out and I’m done with that whole ordeal.
Easy my ass.
{sigh} I need a nap.