News and Brief Story
WARNING: Brain/Mouth/Finger filter is disabled due to not sleeping at all last night. Proceed at your own risk. (Also please ask for an LJ cut if I need one, it's hard to tell right now.)
News: Still alive yay! Had a tonsillitis bout (still recovering) but saw the ENT and it was recommended that I get my tonsils out. (I ordered up the tonsillitis special as a demo.) I keep hearing wonderful things about how great it will be once they are gone but the recovery sounds like hell.
I'm scared of the pain and when I mentioned this as a concern I was told, "Oh we usually prescribe those people either Hydrocodone (Lortab) or Oxycodone (Percocet) because they come in liquid form." I hate it when I can't explain the level of pain clearly to people. I have a bottle of each of those in the bathroom and they do nothing unless I double my dosage and even then it only takes the edge off. And this is just for a normal flare!
I'm planning to ask my regular physician (who has been treating the fibro and throat stuff for almost a year) what he thinks/recommends as well as find out if the surgery takes place in the clinic or at the hospital. It is apparently an outpatient procedure where even though they put you under full anesthesia you go home the same day.
Asking around on fibromyalgia numerous people have endorsed both the "it's the best thing I ever did for my health" and "the recover was hell on earth" feelings. Guess it will come down to scheduling, prepping doctors, and endurance. Bah. However, the discussion of surgeries in that area brought up wisdom teeth. Which brought out my anec-novel.
(warning: graphic descriptions and cursing)
How A Wisdom Tooth Extraction Led to A Cancer Diagnosis in Less Than A Week
I had an infected wisdom tooth during finals at college, suffered through made it home for the summer. Went to the dentist on a Friday and he's a family friend so he said sure hang out in the waiting room I'll pop it out for you right now. Pops it out I drive home (stopping to get my codeine at the pharmacy) life is good. Go to sleep.
Then the pain starts. Horrible, horrific, pain. Father stuffs more codeien down me which I promptly puke up. See the dentist in the middle of the night and he puts something on which gets me through until morning.
Saturday morning I can't take it and call again. He's out on his boat with his family but turns around and heads home. Meanwhile he calls an oral surgeon to meet us at the office. (Oral surgeon was scrubbing out his pool.) By the time of the appointment my face has swollen on that side and I can't drink anything because of pain. OS says maybe combination wisdom tooth tonsillitis. He says go to hospital and get a steroid for the swelling/infection. Turns out he was headed to the ER anyway because someone had fallen off a ladder and smushed their face (dental receptionist's husband actually) and says he will warn them I am coming.
Go to hospital ER. Am finally admitted. They draw blood. Wait. Wait some more. Dad leaves to go get lunch and washes the car. Dad comes back. Still no news. Finally two Extremely Nervous ER docs come in. They are sort of waffling and stuttering. "Well, erm, that is, you might, er, are you sure you're OK hearing this, is that your father, erm" I say "Just spit it out already!" Turns out my white count was about 10 times normal! So they said I had either a blood disorder or leukemia and I had to go to the Better Hospital in The City and did I want an ambulance with that? I said I haven't eaten in two days I'm going to go home and have a sandwich first. So I did.
A few days later I'm in the Better Hospital (picked up walking pneumonia thanks hospital) and now I Have A Fricking Dry Socket. Because Leukemia wasn't enough apparently. So they give me pain meds. Which are not working because hey, this Seriously Hurts Guys. And I'm going, uh how about an Oral Surgeon. And they said, we don't have one on staff. So I say well how about the ER I know they have one on call. C'mon even Not So Good Small Town Hospital has one, I met him!
Late at night (around 7 or 8, late for doctors!) the Oral Surgeon shows up wearing a tweed jacket and tie. He hands his card to my mother, says "open up" and hmms at me. Then he puts on gloves and reaches into his jacket pocket where a pen would be and pulls out a plastic baggie with a mirror and a pair of pinchers with a piece of gauze in them. "Open wider. Hmmm, definitely a dry socket." And with no warning at all he stuffs the gauze down into the hole in my jaw. Then he deftly withdraws his fingers and instruments and watches me SCREAM. I am writhing and crying and clenching my jaw and somehow still screaming because it hurts it hurts and this guy is standing near the wall observing me like a science experiment. A nurse comes to check and he nods and leaves, "that should work."
My mom finally reads the card, the OS name is Dr Pain. His partner is Dr Paneck. I could not make this shit up if I tried.
My dentist sent flowers. So did the receptionist with the ladder-falling-face-smushed husband (it was actually from the whole office but she organized it).
Note when you have cancer you can't actually SEE the flowers. (No immune system.) So they bring them to the door and hold them for a second. The dentist flowers were yellow. Turns out they were actually planted so I was able to see them when I was on a chemo break. It was actually a yellow bow; the flowers were white.
And that was the end of the wisdom teeth (mostly) tooth.
News: Still alive yay! Had a tonsillitis bout (still recovering) but saw the ENT and it was recommended that I get my tonsils out. (I ordered up the tonsillitis special as a demo.) I keep hearing wonderful things about how great it will be once they are gone but the recovery sounds like hell.
I'm scared of the pain and when I mentioned this as a concern I was told, "Oh we usually prescribe those people either Hydrocodone (Lortab) or Oxycodone (Percocet) because they come in liquid form." I hate it when I can't explain the level of pain clearly to people. I have a bottle of each of those in the bathroom and they do nothing unless I double my dosage and even then it only takes the edge off. And this is just for a normal flare!
I'm planning to ask my regular physician (who has been treating the fibro and throat stuff for almost a year) what he thinks/recommends as well as find out if the surgery takes place in the clinic or at the hospital. It is apparently an outpatient procedure where even though they put you under full anesthesia you go home the same day.
Asking around on fibromyalgia numerous people have endorsed both the "it's the best thing I ever did for my health" and "the recover was hell on earth" feelings. Guess it will come down to scheduling, prepping doctors, and endurance. Bah. However, the discussion of surgeries in that area brought up wisdom teeth. Which brought out my anec-novel.
(warning: graphic descriptions and cursing)
How A Wisdom Tooth Extraction Led to A Cancer Diagnosis in Less Than A Week
I had an infected wisdom tooth during finals at college, suffered through made it home for the summer. Went to the dentist on a Friday and he's a family friend so he said sure hang out in the waiting room I'll pop it out for you right now. Pops it out I drive home (stopping to get my codeine at the pharmacy) life is good. Go to sleep.
Then the pain starts. Horrible, horrific, pain. Father stuffs more codeien down me which I promptly puke up. See the dentist in the middle of the night and he puts something on which gets me through until morning.
Saturday morning I can't take it and call again. He's out on his boat with his family but turns around and heads home. Meanwhile he calls an oral surgeon to meet us at the office. (Oral surgeon was scrubbing out his pool.) By the time of the appointment my face has swollen on that side and I can't drink anything because of pain. OS says maybe combination wisdom tooth tonsillitis. He says go to hospital and get a steroid for the swelling/infection. Turns out he was headed to the ER anyway because someone had fallen off a ladder and smushed their face (dental receptionist's husband actually) and says he will warn them I am coming.
Go to hospital ER. Am finally admitted. They draw blood. Wait. Wait some more. Dad leaves to go get lunch and washes the car. Dad comes back. Still no news. Finally two Extremely Nervous ER docs come in. They are sort of waffling and stuttering. "Well, erm, that is, you might, er, are you sure you're OK hearing this, is that your father, erm" I say "Just spit it out already!" Turns out my white count was about 10 times normal! So they said I had either a blood disorder or leukemia and I had to go to the Better Hospital in The City and did I want an ambulance with that? I said I haven't eaten in two days I'm going to go home and have a sandwich first. So I did.
A few days later I'm in the Better Hospital (picked up walking pneumonia thanks hospital) and now I Have A Fricking Dry Socket. Because Leukemia wasn't enough apparently. So they give me pain meds. Which are not working because hey, this Seriously Hurts Guys. And I'm going, uh how about an Oral Surgeon. And they said, we don't have one on staff. So I say well how about the ER I know they have one on call. C'mon even Not So Good Small Town Hospital has one, I met him!
Late at night (around 7 or 8, late for doctors!) the Oral Surgeon shows up wearing a tweed jacket and tie. He hands his card to my mother, says "open up" and hmms at me. Then he puts on gloves and reaches into his jacket pocket where a pen would be and pulls out a plastic baggie with a mirror and a pair of pinchers with a piece of gauze in them. "Open wider. Hmmm, definitely a dry socket." And with no warning at all he stuffs the gauze down into the hole in my jaw. Then he deftly withdraws his fingers and instruments and watches me SCREAM. I am writhing and crying and clenching my jaw and somehow still screaming because it hurts it hurts and this guy is standing near the wall observing me like a science experiment. A nurse comes to check and he nods and leaves, "that should work."
My mom finally reads the card, the OS name is Dr Pain. His partner is Dr Paneck. I could not make this shit up if I tried.
My dentist sent flowers. So did the receptionist with the ladder-falling-face-smushed husband (it was actually from the whole office but she organized it).
Note when you have cancer you can't actually SEE the flowers. (No immune system.) So they bring them to the door and hold them for a second. The dentist flowers were yellow. Turns out they were actually planted so I was able to see them when I was on a chemo break. It was actually a yellow bow; the flowers were white.
And that was the end of the wisdom teeth (mostly) tooth.