Well, I have obviously over-indulged in caffeinated beverages today, as it is 10:30 pm and I am not even remotely tired. I'm a complete night-owl, but I'm usually at least physically tired (aka wiped out from toddler-chasing) by this time of day. Or.. maybe it has something to do with the fact that I slept ~16 hours yesterday. I had major dental work done yesterday, and it made for a very interesting day.
If you are nervous about dental procedures - or, as in my case, sickeningly panic-stricken at the thought of that WHRRRRRRing drill sound.. you MUST explore sedation-dentistry. Omg. So let me explain a little.. ~5 years ago I had a horrid dental experience which involved a tooth that could not be numbed and a hitler-esque dentist who advised me to just 'hold on to the chair, it will only be a minute or two longer'. Many, many minutes later, I left the office completely soaked in perspiration and harboring a deep-seated terror of anyone wielding a small drill and a suction tube.
Fast-forward 5 years, 3 dentists, and many, many painful dental visits later (tho none as bad as the hitler episode). I just began seeing a new-to-me dentist, and she seems completely amazing. Why? Well, she is very nice, informative, and knowledgable.. but also because her office does conscious sedation dentistry, and she agrees that I sound like a good candidate! Probably b/c i have apologized in advance that I am a big dental wuss and i am crazy-paranoid about pain during dental procedures. I am also very difficult to numb, which is partially due to the amt of adrenaline pumping thru me.
So I have some major work to be done, and one big piece of it includes that tooth from 5 years ago. Now the tooth needs a crown. So do 4 others. Good GOD! I blame my mom for this - she has always had major teeth issues. I'm sure it has nothing to do with my gum-addiction which spanned 2 decades. And my 3-year hiatus from dentists after the hitler visit.
Fast-forward again to this week. The sedation experience began with a nice big valium pill on Tuesday night to enable a good nights sleep. Ahh.. very nice! :) Wednesday morning began bright and early - I was at the office by 7 am. I was ushered into a very nice private room. A scented candle was burning.. a dark pink shade was over the window, causing the room to be washed in a very calming shade of pink. The dentist and assistant welcomed me and settled me into the chair. The dentist put the crushed sedation medication under my tongue, settled a nice lavender-scented neck pillow under my neck, hooked me up to the slightly orange-tasting nitrous, dimmed the lights, covered me in a blanket, adjusted headphones with soothing spa music over my ears, connected me to a monitoring machine, and settled back until the drugs had begun their 'thing'.
~15 minutes post-cocktail, I was suddenly floating to the right. Yes, just the right - no left floats. Very fuzzy, nice floating sensations. Then I began thinking about a friend of my sisters who is very religious and is going thru a horrid battle with Hodgkins. I had recently read blog posts from he and his sister (who is donating stem cells this week to him) who discussed their happily accepting pain and offering it up in prayer.. and I had some very very deep thoughts about this. Epiphanies you might call them. And then my thoughts turned to the fact that I was feeling quite high, and it was only ~8 o'clock in the morning! {in re-reading this, it sounds like maybe I'm normally high by 9.. but really, it's usually at least noon.. baahaa!}
I began thinking about how I was floating in my chair, high as a kite, while people around me were probably bored and doing their normal morning routine.. and how I could get used to this feeling, it was too bad you couldn't get this from a nice chardonnay.. and then I began to giggle. It was very difficult to stop the giggle-y feeling.. but it ended abruptly when the dentist returned and the drills came out.
The remainder of the 3 or so hours that the dentist worked on my teeth (and did a stupendous job I might add) - I was slightly coherent. I never slept or dozed, and my eyes remained open. {too open actually - I still could not be numbed and they had to call in the surgeon-dentist to 'specially' numb me - and it caused my left eye to be unable to shut!! WIERD - they had to keep shutting it for me} They kept asking me why I was still awake and that never have they had a patient who kept their eyes open the entire time. They assumed, pretty correctly, that I'm a bit of a control freak. ;)) They were still talking about how shocking this was today when they called to follow-up on me. Anyhow.. during the work, that nasty tooth freaked out and required a root canal. I had to make a trip to a specialist after leaving my dentist (and being walked out by her and my hubby) to have this done. Also no big deal, tho the happy psychedelic drugs had worn off (and no more were offered.. sniff sniff..).
By the time I made it home - ~3 pm, I could not stay awake. I moved from bed to couch and back to bed.. and I think I spoke to at least one person on the phone (no idea what THAT conversation must have been like!).. but I slept most of the time from 3 pm until 7 am this morning. Wow. What a day!
Anyhow. Feeling pretty good today except for very sore jaw at root canal area, and can't eat anything that requires chewing on temporary crowns. Since that is 5!! teeth - both sides involved - I'm down to soup and ice-cream. hm. Big sacrifice, really. LOL.
So I had more that I was going to chat about in my blog post this evening, but that story was quite long! I'll save the rest for another time. I think I'd better go brush what is left of my teeth.
Btw Pam - your survey is on my list of blog material. I'm a sucker for a survey. {ok, so I just like to talk about myself...}
Happy Friday everyone!
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