From Her Fridays: Missing Toofers

I had my wisdom teeth removed this week. It was my first “surgery,” IV, experience with a scalpel in general. I have a bit of an irrational fear of needles and have never had anything worse than a tetanus shot {knock on wood}…To be honest, somedays I get a little nervous that my next tetanus shot is less than six years away. Yeah, I know.

I do, however, take pain like a champ, despite my fear of needles.

That being said. I woke up six times during the 40-minute procedure. The first time I pushed the Dr.’s hands away, loopy from gas and under an IV that was supposed to have my sleeping, I just saw masked figures above me, and it was a wittle scary. The second time, I just mumbled, hands in mouth, “I feel everything you’re doing right now,” to which they panicked and stabbed my bottom jaw with another shot of local anesthesia. I mumbled “Ouch” and fell back to sleep, apparently. The rest I don’t remember.

The whole experience reminded me of this story from January of 2009, if you’ll hear it.

I had just transferred schools. Changed states. It was my first birthday in Texas, my 21st. Six months before, I had to pick out a residence hall, to which, they responded, “Most transfer students do not get their first request.” I had never physically been to the campus before. I have lived in garbage dorms before…or so I thought. My first school was where the Chicago Bears have their summer training camp, so we would move back in in fall to the overwhelmingly distinct smell of jock strap.

I picked out a dorm from a photo online, wondering why this quaint little hall with a swimming pool was half the cost of the others. I definitely got my first choice, I’m sure they couldn’t believe that I had asked to live here.

It was my 21st birthday. I had lived in College Inn for over a month, and it was awful. A year and a half later and I have never seen anything but frogs in the pool, by the way. I shared a “Matchbox” room with the sloppiest girl you can imagine. Leftover food rotted in half of the room most of the time. She decided to smack and chomp impromptu salads in the middle of the night {pet peeve}.

I wasn’t having a great time, but I did meet some really great folks while I lived there. There’s a ritual out here called the Fry St. Crawl, where all of the bars on Fry St. will give you a free shot each for your birthday, and two for your 21st birthday. Isaiah got a bunch of our friends together and we hit the crawl.

I was only a couple of beers and two or three shots in when I got this mind-numbing pain in my back. We walked the half mile back to the dorm, and I was stiff, I couldn’t even think to move. Isaiah stayed with me, holding my hand until morning, and I woke up unable to move my neck. After a quick call to the health clinic, they heard stiff-neck and ordered Isaiah to bring me in immediately, fearing a meningitis breakout on campus.

They told me “not to pass go, not to collect $200,” which I’ve always hated outside of the game of Monopoly, and to head to the nearest emergency room. In Illinois, I got in this bad habit of not going to the Dr…ever. I made several emergency room visits for the silliest things that could’ve been prevented, and racked up hundreds of dollars of monthly payments I was still paying off a year later. I was not enthusiastic. My mom and step-dad rushed out, Isaiah met us shortly after.

Lumbar puncture, they told me. I panicked, understandably.

My parents shuddered at the thought before telling me I was “just going to have to tough it out,” and that it was “nothing worth worrying about.” They brought out the lumbar puncture “kit,” and set it next to me for the next hour. I was troubled by the directions on the top of the disposable packaging. Really? Directions? The needle inside was in two parts. TWO!

The doctor came back in and mentioned, since I was obviously not a happy girl, that if I had bacterial meningitis, they would have it as well, and it was probably easier if one of them could come back in 12 hours for the test than to have me do it. My parents, who claimed over and over that it was nothing to be worried about, and that I was being a big baby looked at each other..but no one said anything.

Isaiah stood up and said, “I’ll have it. When should I come back.” I got all teary-eyed recently thinking about that story. Thinking about my “knight” who stood up and offered to have a spinal tap for me, when my family wouldn’t.

The night before my wisdom teeth ordeal, I couldn’t sleep. I had the worst picture of what the surgery would be like in my head. It seems like when you have to go through something kind of scary, everyone has had the worst experience with it, and they want to tell you all about it. Isaiah sat up and said, “If I could have this surgery for you, I would. I don’t want you to be worried.”

It, obviously, ended up being fine.

I do have some exciting news! It’s not “the Surprise!” but exciting none-the-less. I decided to quit smoking when I had the surgery, and it hasn’t been that tough. I was really over it. I do feel like a little less of a bad-ass for some reason, but it’s been two days. {I know, right? two days, who cares.} I figured I would share that story from January, while I’m going through a couple of weird experiences over here at the same time, though, and feeling a little more emotional than usual.