La La Land

When I asked for suggestions a while ago, a couple of people that I actually know in real life told me that I had to tell ya’ll about my wisdom teeth extraction. This post has been sitting in my drafts for a while and I kinda completely forgot about it.

I barely remember that entire day, but apparently it’s pretty good, so BFF helped me write the whole thing.

Two of my wisdom teeth had actually really started to bother me and when I went to the dentist, he decided to just take all four of them out and get it over with. Ok, fine with me. I get good drugs and a couple days off work. See, that’s how my mind works. I don’t get scared or get anxious about the thought of having teeth extracted from my mouth...I look at the bright side. Such an optimist.

Anyways, I sat in the dentist chair and he had previously asked me if I wanted to be awake through the whole deal and I said, “No, I think I’m gonna have to pass on that, although you do seem like good company.”

So he hooked me up to an IV that let some magical liquid into my body that put me into what he referred to as a “Twilight Sedation.” He said I would be able to talk to him and actually be awake but I wouldn’t feel any pain and probably wouldn’t remember. He told me to count backwards from 10 and I got to 6.

“Breathe. Tress, you have to breathe.”

I opened my eyes and sucked in a huge breath (I have no idea why I stopped breathing) as the nurse insisted that I continue breathing. Then I started crying my eyes out. I was so confused and disoriented that I could do nothing but cry. My mouth was full of cotton- that much I could tell, but everything was pretty much numb.

My mother had to pick me up since I obviously couldn’t drive in my condition and as I was walking to check out I kept telling her to stop holding onto me “because I am a grown woman and can walk on my own.” Then I proceeded to hug the wall. And I don’t mean I held onto the wall to help me walk. Nope, I just spun around, threw my arms out, hugged the damn wall and just stood there.

When she finally got me to the nurses’ station, the nurse handed her my prescription and I said, “I don’t want that. Give me medicine.” They had to convince me that the piece of paper magically turned into a bottle of medicine when I took it to the pharmacy.

While my mom ran into the pharmacy to fill my prescription, my step dad sat in the car with me where I had drool and blood running down my chin. He then pulled out my aftercare instructions and started reading them to me. I looked at him with all seriousness and said “Get to the good part.” He of course asked what part I was speaking of and I said, “The part about the tobacco and alcohol. When can I smoke?”

When he told me I had to wait three days, I started crying again. Then I realized that I still had a bandage on my hand. I poked the bandage and it hurt. So I looked at my step dad and said, “They left the IV in me. Let’s go back.”

My step dad laughed and played along. He said, “They sure did. We will sue them. Here, I’ll take it out for you.”

I threw my hand in his face, nearly busting his lip so that he could pull the bandage off and pretend to remove the IV needle.

I looked down at my hand and proceeded to thank him endlessly for saving my life. I even told him that I would have probably developed an STD (don’t ask me!) from it if he hadn’t removed it.

We finally got back to my apartment where my mom gave me some of my new happy pills and tried to make me go to sleep on the couch. But all I wanted to do was eat. I could think of nothing but getting something to stop the rumbling in my stomach.

Of course, those asshole dentists said I couldn’t eat anything solid, so pudding it was! My mom actually had to feed it to me because I couldn’t even locate my own hands. Then I kept falling asleep with the pudding in my still numb mouth. The pudding basically went into my mouth, down my chin and rested comfortably on my shirt. But every time my mom would try to put the pudding away I would yell that I was hungry.

So after maybe getting a small spoon full from the whole pudding cup, I looked at her and said, “Oh shit, Mom. They left the IV in so that you could feed me through it and Step Dad already took it out. Oh shit.”

My step dad had to explain the whole thing to her in between his fits of laughter. I started crying again because I thought I was going to starve to death and the only means I had of food intake had been removed.

I don’t remember what happened after that, but sometime later, I actually remember my mom saying, “Want me to move him?”

I looked up at her and her dancing twin and tried to understand what she was saying. She kept pointing down and I saw her mouth moving but I just didn’t understand what she meant. But I finally looked down to see my 90 pound dog lying on top of me. I hadn’t even known he was there. I smiled at him, patted him on the head, and drifted back into La La Land (ever been there? It’s fantastic!).

My BFF brought movies over that night after I had woken up and was a little more coherent, or so I thought. I thought we were having a long conversation, but she just kept looking at my strangely. I just thought maybe she was an intent listener and had questions ready for when I was finished. So I kept on talking away. It felt like I had talked for an hour, but in reality it was only minutes, when she finally said, “I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about, but there is no IV needle in your hand.”

We actually watched two movies that night that I had to watch again the next day because I had no memory of them.

I really want some of that stuff again.