Ha you know you're totally singing that song now!
Anyway, the adjustments so far haven't been all THAT bad. At first I was really scared thinking "Oh man what am I going to do with myself without Keith" but I think I've coped quite well. I think it was more mental than anything - and I've finally realized that I'm not ALONE I'm just by MYSELF!
Its been really nice that he can call me every other day or so - even though we really don't have much to talk about. We more or less end up repeating everything we sent in an email that one of us hasn't gotten the chance to read yet LOL! Still its comforting hearing his voice, and hearing that he doesn't sound stressed or anything - just a little tired which is probably just from jet lag.
I dropped him off Wednesday (the 7th) but pulled out before the bus did. I was whining the night before "Pleaseeee don't make me watch the bus leave!" and by golly I didn't! No way. I sucked it up for the most part, and had a lot of reasons to.
#1 There were a lot of people on those two buses. I'm sure they JUST got done doing what we were doing and didn't need to be 'set off' by seeing me bawling
#2 The other couple of wives there were totally stone faced - and they were toting babies! If they can handle saying goodbye, I can too damn it!
#3 I had a oral surgery appointment within the hour and thought I should be focused on that
So I shed a few tears driving to my appointment - but the bitterness of saying goodbye to my husband for 5 months was overshadowed with the fact that I was about to have two wisdom teeth cut out of my mouth with nothing but a few shots. Local anesthetic only - because I had no escort.
I sat in the car for about 10 minutes psyching myself up. I reminded myself how much of an awesome badass I am, and walked in the door. They took me into the oral surgery hall right away where I sat in that stupid chair that makes weird squeaky noises that almost sound like farts. Now, at that moment I thought that I was only having one tooth removed because A) Its military - they only take care of what is necessary at that moment and B) no one told me otherwise. I was wrong. Both bottom wisdom teeth were coming out.
No problem. I'd handle it. So the Captain doing my surgery gives me about 3 shots in each hinge of my jaw and walks out to let it numb up. Her assistant then starts talking to me while she's setting up the tray "Wow I can't believe you aren't being put under. I mean .. -everyone- elects to be put under." Immediately I panic a bit thinking that I've made the wrong decision, but still psyched up from my self pep talk I say "Well I don't have an escort because I dropped my husband off about a half hour ago to go down range .. plus I have a pretty high pain tolerance." She just kinda stood there silently for a moment and said "Better you than me, sister!" Oh god what have I done?
About 10 minutes later the Captian comes back, and yes I'm numb. She puts the random 'keep your mouth open' instruments in my mouth and starts cutting on my gums with what feels like a primary school kid's safety scissors. It doesn't hurt - I can just tell that its scissors which grossed me out a bit. Even though I couldn't see anything - I could just imagine what it all looked like. She makes a statement about seeing the tooth and starts trying to pull it. The lady did everything but put a foot on my jaw while pulling on the tooth to no avail. She then tries to crack the tooth to take it out in sections, which doesn't work either. Then she says "Uh ... ma'am? We're going to have to remove some of the bone."
Of course I can't answer her or I would have said "BONE?! What bone? Remove it? HOW!" but before I get a full paniced thought out of my head I hear what sounds like a table saw. Oh fuck. She's going to use that in my mouth! So she starts sawing and telling me while sawing that the roots of the tooth are fused to my jaw bone so she has to saw around it. Now it starts hurting, but of course I'm pretty much just powerless. 15 minutes pass by and she's finally done sawing and moves to the left side.
The same thing happens: scissors, pulling, splitting attempt "We'll have to saw this side too. Your roots are actually bent outwards at the end like fish hooks" More pain, more dizzy feeling from the vibrations in my jaw. Finally its all over and she packs my face with gauze and sends me out the door.
Of course I got meds. Not enough, if you ask me. 10 Oxycodone didn't even scratch the surface. My face was swollen, my cheeks were swollen, I was bleeding, and my jaw was bruised. Yes, this was an awesome decision.
I had taken Wed, Thur, and Fri off work and went back to work on Monday. Monday I was still in a lot of pain but had already taken all my pain medication. Tuesday the pain had gotten a bit worse. What did it feel like? Well it felt as if a dentist was drilling on my teeth without waiting for the numbing agent to fully take effect.
I rang up the oral surgery department and said "I'm miserable and I'm out of medication. I expected to be in quite a bit of pain after a surgery like that, but its been nearly 7 days and I am in more pain NOW than I was hours after surgery." They got me in immediately.
Come to find out I had dry socket in both sides. The person who saw me was amazed that I had somehow not completely lost my fucking mind going through all that pain for almost 7 days. "High pain tolerance" was all I said. He put some clove tasting shit on what looked like a packing peanut, crammed it into the incision point and within 10 minutes all the pain was gone. He thinks that I've had dry socket since the day after surgery since they had to saw so deep into my jaw to remove those teeth.
Luckily I have no more wisdom teeth and I stand a very high liklihood of never having to go through any of that again. I'm really looking forward to my first full night of sleep in a week :)
I'd also like to thank Willow for offering support during Keith's deployment. Right now I have a few good weeks of activities planned out (there's a Bazaar this weekend and next weekend is the annual Beer Festival in Cambridge, and a week or so after that is Strawberry Faire!) but I'm sure at some point the 'novelty' of being by myself will wear off and I won't be able to fill a Saturday with an activity like I can for the next 4 weeks or so.
So I"m off to bed now ... I hope no one EVER has to experience all that dental bullshit. I seriously was wishing for a coma at one point!
2 comments:
Oh man, that sounds BRUTAL!
I had to have all four of mine removed, 2 at a time, when I was around 19, I think. All I remember is being in a shit ton of pain and demanding they do something!
I made the STUPID mistake of letting a student try and get one of mine out, 45 FRIGGING minutes it took before I had lost THAT much blood, and looked THAT pale, the dentist finally took over and got it out in like 2 mins!
I think the bit I hated most, was that I had to have around 4/5 injections both times, around my gums and the roof of my mouth, I don't have a very high pain threshold and could still feel shit even after all that, all that tugging EWWWWWWWWWWW.
Then, all I remember is being uber dribbly for hours and being laughed at, bosses expected me to be off for a week but I was fit as a fiddle the next day, much to my dismay!
AHHH TEETH STORIES, the fun!
OMG, that's really awful! I had my wisdom teeth taken out one by one with local anesthetic a couple of years ago, but luckily mine came out pretty easily, so the procedure as well as the resulting pain wasn't too bad.
Reading a story like this still gives me the shivers, as I can clearly picture the whole situation ... brrrr! I'm sooo glad that I got rid of mine and will most likely not have to go through something like this again. Congrats on being so tough and getting through it!
Oh, and hi! I think I never commented here before ;)
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