The last time you heard from me I mentioned a problem with my shoulder and arm. When I posted that update I honestly thought I’d be down for a week, maybe a week and a half.
25 days later and I feel like I’ve escaped the clutches of death itself!
Ok, ok. That might be a bit dramatic… a bit.
Let me fill you in on what’s kept this writer down for over 3 weeks.
Half way through my weird arm injury recovery I received a call from my oral surgeon (whom I had been successfully avoiding for over a month).
“Hello, Mrs. Denton. We’re calling to see if you’d like to go ahead and schedule your wisdom teeth extraction today.”
Now see, I’m one of those people who has a hard time saying no to someone. It’s the whole reason I avoid numbers I don’t recognize for fear of agreeing to some crazy sales scheme.
So naturally I said sure. (Proceed to smacking head with phone)
Well, much to my dismay and utter fear there was an opening just days away. (Oh goody!) So they penciled me in and my husband made sure I couldn’t back out by taking the day off of work to “accompany” me.
Before I go any further here is a bit of back-story about my previous dental experiences.
I am no fan of the dentist.
As a child my mom didn’t have dental insurance so I rarely ever went to one. I think I graced a dentist with my presence maybe a total of 3 times as a kid. Once as a general check up and cleaning, once to get two fillings, and finally once to remove a piece of pencil lead from my gums….don’t ask.
So when my husband and I finally got dental insurance I decided it was time I went back.
At first everything was fine…great even. The dentist said I had great teeth really and that even with a lack of dental visits I only had a few small cavities to fill and 4 wisdom teeth to remove (because they never came out all the way). I left the office with a smile and an appointment to return for my first set of cavity repairs a week later.
You can read about that little adventure here on Make It Stop! .
Now back to the reason for this post.
Wisdom teeth extraction day arrives (Oh Joy!).
I’m petrified but thankful I’ll be under anesthesia during the surgery since normal numbing methods don’t work very well on my body (my body hates me).
At this point I’m actually looking forward to the video of crazy things I’m sure my husband will catch me saying in recovery.
The dental assistants and nurses prep me and I’m sitting in this “spa-like” room feeling like an alien about to be dissected with a huge light shining above and weird tubes and lines attached to me.
I don’t even remember passing out. I just remember trying to conjure up an image of the beach (my go-to Happy Place).
Next thing I know I feel myself becoming “aware”. I say aware instead of awake because my eyes weren’t open but I was conscious.
I remember feeling a few tugs in my mouth and then the feeling of tears sliding down my cheeks. I don’t remember feeling any pain. The next thing I know there is utter chaos happening and then in a matter of seconds it was back to oblivion for me.
Once the procedure was done I came awake hyperventilating, shaking and whimpering with tears running down my face. I could hear one of the nurses reassuring another nurse (whose first day it was) that this happens (sometimes) and to not let it freak her out.
Let me clear this up….. that reassurance was to the new nurse at the office…… not me…. the patient who just went through the damn thing. Matter of fact the only words I got were,
“Try to calm down now.” and “Can you walk to recovery?” (Which I did….barely.)
I lay there in recovery for a good 20 minutes before I was able to stop hyperventilating and crying. When I finally did, one jarring realization hit me.
Not only did something go wrong but I don’t even get the benefit of being “high” afterwards!
I could hear all the other patients in the curtained off beds next to me talk about the steak they are going to eat after leaving here or their secret life as a mermaid, meanwhile I’m sitting there thinking “What the f*** just happened?!”
Apparently, not only does my body feel the need to block numbing agents but also anesthesia as well?! (Great…just great. See I told you my body hates me).
They finally let my husband come back and when he sees me the look on his face said it all. He knew right away that something went wrong and that I was not currently riding “high”.
The oral surgeon popped in just long enough to say I was free to go (I guess he was hoping I didn’t remember what happened) and then the nurse came back to give me a sheet of what to do and what not to do the next couple of days.
At this point I was already feeling pain which I tried to tell the nurse about but she kept insisting that I’ll be numb for a few more hours at least….right… Then she proceeds to change out the gauze in my mouth. Upon removing them she lets slip, “Oh wow that’s a lot of blood!” before she recovered herself and assured me that its “normal” and would stop in a few hours.
A few hours?? Try 4 days. Four days I spent with blood soaked gauze in my mouth having to change it out every 20 minutes or whenever I ate or drank something (which wasn’t very often). And yet, that’s not the worst of it.
By the time we got home I got brave enough to let my tongue explore my newly ravaged mouth.
- 4 missing wisdom teeth
- 4 gaping holes where the wisdom teeth were….ok…
- 1 large stitch on the roof of my mouth that ran from my teeth on the right to the middle….Hmm…looks like I found the cause of the commotion in my mouth.
- 1 dime size drop of blood on my shirt (where I know had been covered by paper before the procedure) and a ripped seem in my yoga pants (that wasn’t there before the procedure). Something tells me I might have felt “calm” on the inside when I woke up in the middle of the procedure but I must have gone crazy on the outside.
That is still not the worst of it….
My body does not tolerate pain medicine. Not even a little.
So I had to rely on multiple doses of Ibuprofen and extra strength Tylenol to get me through 4 wisdom teeth extractions, upper and lower jaw bone shavings (I still don’t know why this had to be done) and a stitched up gash on the roof of my mouth.
All I could do was sleep the pain away and I did for a week straight.
Thank God I had my Mom and Husband to hold down the fort cause I was literally worthless.
I know, I know. You’re probably thinking I’m a softy and it couldn’t have been as bad as I make it sound.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Let me put it this way….
I’ve given birth to two children without the benefit of any kind of pain medicine.
They were turned the wrong way, they ripped me coming out and one of the labors lasted for 4 days.
And yet I’d still gladly relive that pain before going through another week of what I just went through….GLADLY!
Ok. i’m done complaining 😉
Now, I need your help. Because I missed so many days I’m way behind on my scheduled blog posts, 12 of them to be exact.
The blog topics I was going to write about during that time were:
#CurvyWriter
- 2015 RITA Finalists
- How To Write Dialogue
- Tax Deductions for Writers
- Words to Delete from Your MS
#CurvyReader
- Popular Book Villains We Love to Hate
- RITA Finalists I Can’t Wait To Read
- My Dream Cast of actors fro Destiny Be Damned
- My Favorite Reader Resources
#CurvyLiving
- Plus Size Hatred and the Bullies Who Fuel It
- Dating Plus Size
- Plus Size Art and Boudoir Photography
- Plus Size Men
You’re mission, if you choose to except it, is to let me know if any or all of these topics interest you.
- Do you want to read them all?
- Are there just a few that catch your interest? If so which ones?
Don’t be shy. Let me know what you want to read. I’m not writing these posts to hear myself “talk” 😉 If I’m going to spend time catching up I want it to be spent on something you guys actually care about.
Before I end this post I would like to a moment to say…
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
To everyone who sent me comments on my social media accounts, private messages and emails. Checking up on me, sending me helpful advice and even mentioning software to keep me writing when my arm was going dumb.
It means the world to me.
You guys are amazing!
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