Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Sedation dentistry still sucks

Yesterday I skipped work and went to the dentist. It had been awhile since I visited a dentist and I admit that I was terrified. I tried to ride recklessly through every puddle of broken glass on the side of the road, but to my dismay, I arrived safe and sound. They were waiting for me and as I entered the front door, the mailman was taking their outgoing mail. I hoped like hell he would simply toss me in his bag like a rogue letter addressed "return to sender". I walked back to the back and the nurse was very nice. She asked if I was on any medication or whether I had taken an allergy pill that day. I said "no, but I took a 24 hour pill last night, maybe we should post-pone." It turns out that wasn't a problem.
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Because it had been so long since my last visit, my mouth was a wreck. I brush every day. I think about dental floss daily. I had 8 cavities. A couple of those were actually old cavities that had bad fillings. Nonetheless, my face feels like a had a fist-fight. The cool thing is that they knocked me out. No, literally I was sedated. I remember vaguely the lovely feeling of sedation traveling up my arm to all the right places, and then I remember clumsily attempting to load my bicycle into the trunk of Tiffani's car, flopping into the front seat and trying to talk. We went to Jamba Juice, cause Tiff said she thought it would hit my spot, but really I think she was craving some comedy. When she handed it to me, not only could I barely hold onto it, but I couldn't get my lips to grasp the straw. You try sucking on anything after both sides of your mouth are shot full of numbing agents. Very confused I flopped down on the couch and slept for what seemed like minutes. The pain in my face is what woke me up. I called the dentist to see if I was aloud to take anything for the pain(thinking advil) and they wrote me a prescription for Vicodin. Tiff brought it to me and I took some, the pain went away and I slept most of the rest of the day. I woke up at some point, had some conversations, played a video game I think and then went to bed. It's all a daze.
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Today I managed to wake up in time to go to work, went worked very little on account of having to return some trees to Sauvie Island and went to school. The face still hurts, but I'm dealing alright thanks to my advil substitute.

1 comment:

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