by Gayle Towell
Oh, Pain. You’re always there for me when no one else is. My companion. My friend. I’ve made my peace with you. I mean, you haven’t killed me yet. Perhaps you’ve made me stronger.
So, here’s my follow up to my dental saga.
Beware that the following contains an arguably mentally unhealthy approach to the matter.
I made an appointment with a new dentist. I knew nothing about this dentist, just picked what was closest and had openings. Why so haphazard, you say? Because anytime I ever try to do my research online to pick just the right person, it seems to always end up a crapshoot anyway. I was just saving myself that intermediate step.
New dentist appears to be just out of dental school. Brand new. That’s ok, I tell myself. Might mean she’s extra trained with lots of fresh knowledge! Also, the dentist office seems like they got their shit together. X-rays went well and whatnot.
Overall, no major complaints about this dentist, though she did try to tell me (just as two different people over the phone have) that the bone poking through my gums was a free-floating “spicule” that would come out on its own eventually, or they could just pull it out real easy. Even though I was like, no, I’m pretty freaking sure it’s attached to my jawbone still.
But you know what? I decided I couldn’t care anymore. I was going to throw caution to the wind and just ride with whatever the “experts” say all the way to the end.
So I said, sure, go ahead, let’s pull it out!
But then somewhere in the process of obtaining insurance approvals and planning the procedure, the story changed, and I had to be referred to an oral surgeon. (And when I tried to ask what changed, no one could tell me. Curious. But whatever…)
A very kind reception person then helped with the referral and managed to get me in to see someone the very next day.
Great!
I googled the person I was going to see. He also seemed to be pretty fresh out of school. Hooray! Another adventure awaits…
Also, I checked the notes left on my “mychart” for the dental office and noticed that they now recommended “alveoloplasty” which is where they reshape the sharp pokey jaw bone (as opposed to plucking out a spicule).
At the oral surgeon the following afternoon, I’m fully committed to just letting them fuck up my mouth in whatever way they’d like and I would just roll with it. I mean, my mouth already hurt, and with chunks of bone poking through my gums, what was there to lose?
Well, my friends. The individual assisting the oral surgeon was also pretty new. At least, I fucking hope that’s the excuse. The surgeon himself, however, seemed to know things. I think? I hope. I think he fixed stuff. We’ll see.
But back to the assistant. Holy hell, folks. It was amazing.
You know how when they’re going to numb you at the dentist, they put that Q-tip with topical directly on the spots they’re going to inject, leave it there for a few minutes, remove, rinse, then the dentist injects? Well, that’s not this lady’s strategy. She had the Q-tip and swabbed it all around all over the left side of my mouth – back corner, along my gums both top and bottom as well as tongue-side and cheek-side.
It was super gross. That stuff does not taste good at all. I was very quickly begging for rinse and spit, which she was sparing with.
So at this point, the entire (and I mean ENTIRE) left side of my mouth was swabbed with topical, but nothing was applied to the right side.
Then the surgeon comes in to inject the local anesthetic. He begins on my right side.
So that hurt.
And then he did the left side. Which also hurt, because the topical was smeared all over instead of concentrated on the location where the injection would occur.
Side note: When I got home, I googled how this topical anesthetic is supposed to be applied in case somehow they do things differently since the last time I had a cavity filled. Nope. I’m not crazy. She did indeed do it completely wrong. It was as if this person had never done this before, never been taught how to do this, and never had it done to her. She was just making it up as she went, with full confidence. She also said nothing whatsoever as she watched the dentist inject the right side first. There was no, “Oh wait, I didn’t realize we were doing both sides” or anything. And as I said previously, I stopped caring and was ready to ride this adventure wherever it led, so I said nothing as well. (My physical body, however, was having some fun reactions. Tears were just pouring down my face and I was shaking. Good times.)
The shots took effect. Hooray for being numb. The next steps were to cut open my gums, file down my jaw pokeys, and sew it back up again. As far as I could tell, the surgeon did ok with this. But this assistant person continued with confident chaos. She didn’t seem to know how to do the suction right and was constantly getting corrections. She kept hitting my front teeth with the tools and I was worried she was going to break one of them. And she would stab the back of my jaw and my throat with various tools. This was worse on the right side than the left and I kept feeling like I was being choked.
Once it was all done, the surgeon left the room and the assistant person said prescriptions would be sent to the pharmacy.
What prescriptions? I asked.
Oh, uh probably something for pain and maybe an antibiotic. I’m not sure.
Ooookay, then. I guess it will be a fun surprise!
I went to the front to check out. After making my payment, I asked if there were after care instructions. The receptionist said she’d print them out for me. She handed me the papers and I left. (Side note: Surgeon gave me his phone number to call if I have any issues and seemed generally sympathetic to my previous experience. He gets bonus points for that.)
Now, what was on these after care instruction papers, you ask? Um. Nothing. Well, not nothing, but nothing related to what was done and what I was supposed to do to heal. It was just a couple lines listing that there was a visit, and then a list of the medications I was already taking (not new ones being prescribed). That was it.
Well, I thought, maybe it will be on the “mychart” patient portal.
So I log in to see. But there isn’t even a record of my visit on there. Though the newly prescribed medications did show up there shortly after.
Among them, 600 mg ibuprofen. Except I already take a daily prescription NSAID. It was on the list on my chart. But hey, at least I know not to double up on those. And the pharmacist caught it as well, so there’s that.
And you know, I can google after care instructions and make educated guesses, so it’s fine.
It’s all just fine…
The jury is still out on the surgeon, though he mostly seemed ok. Time will tell. I did ask about the part of my jawbone that felt like it had been broken and was not in full alignment with the rest of the bone. His take on that was that sometimes there are asymmetries and it might just be how my jaw is shaped. Not sure I buy that. But I’m also not sure it matters at this point. As long as the pokeys don’t come back, everything should eventually be functional again, (tooth sensitivity and occasional stabbing sensation in TMJ aside).
Feral Polymaths 