After a lot of nudging from both personal and professional sources, I finally called for a consultation. I woke up bright n' early this morning to head to the oral surgeon to see what he had to say.
I got there and was greeted by delightful staff and a very lovely, tech-savvy office. I watched Obama make some jokes on Leno while I filled out my patient information. A cute child tried to pet my leopard flats.
"This isn't so bad," I thought. "You have been building this up for no reason. It's not like you even hate the dentist. What if you get back there and he's like 'LOLZ, U DON'T NEED TO GET THESE TAKEN OUT!' What if he lets me stay conscious? I can do this! I can conquer the world!!"
My overly nice dental assistant got me comfy, despite the fact that my view was kind of disorienting. It's weird looking at your own mouth on the big-screen.
I told her it might be scary in there since my teeth have been bothering me off and on since January. She boosted my confidence by noting they see a lot of "meth mouth." Sorry for the addicts, but not so sorry for finding a dental assistant who scratched my huge "Breaking Bad" itch. Again, what had I been worried about? THINGS ARE GOING TO BE FINE, RIGHT?!
The surgeon walked in and was beyond pleasant. He looked professional yet friendly, certainly capable of ripping my teeth out of my face bones. He kind of poked around my mouth for 30 seconds and then used my mouth map to tell me what was up.
"See these teeth here, here, and here? They're all covered in bone. Oh, and behind this one? That's a cyst, and we're going to have to test that to make sure it's not something worse. Because of all this, you're going to have to be asleep via an IV drip."
I replied with some nervous laughs and let him know I'd done way too much research, so I knew that tumors could develop because of your wisdom teeth. EHEHEH, IT'S SO FUNNY, I'M DEALING WITH THIS SO WELL, DOC! Inside my head though, my optimism was crashing and burning as my cynicism screamed "DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU'D GET OFF THAT EASY?!"
I chatted with him about my overwhelming fear of anesthesia after he let me know there was no way around sedation. The assistant had taken my blood pressure and instantly commented about how low it was, so she was there to back me up. He assured me about as much as anyone could ever hope to, and mentioned that the medicine would even make my blood pressure rise. He also promised a 20-30 minute surgery. Come on, little body, we can hold out for that long, can't we? Pretty please?
So I discussed price (JESUS.) with the insurance coordinator and made my appointment for the earliest time slot available on Halloween. I figure the juju of my favorite holiday has got to count for something.
I spent the remainder of my day starting to make arrangements for next week and trying to convince my dad to film my post-op jokes in the recovery room. He's not really a huge fan of the idea.
I'll probably say my farewells to everyone, make a last will and testament video, and cry a lot about my ultimate demise, but when I wake up on the other side four teeth and a potential tumor less, I'll feel like a big ol' dummy. A BIG 'UN! Especially since it looks like Hurricane Sandy will kill all of us that week anyway.
