The big day had finally arrived.
No, I wasn’t getting married or graduating from college. In fact, this particular occasion filled me not with pride, but dread. You see, October 13th, Friday the 13th natch, would be the morning of a long overdue procedure that would see me get the last 21 of my rotted teeth pulled out of my mouth that had served as a bacterial breeding ground for years. A certain relief was to be expected upon the surgery’s conclusion, yet I considered once again postponing this alleged trade-up in quality of life.
Dentists, hospitals in general actually, creep me the hell out. I’m the kind of guy who would be willing to wait out vague and potentially concerning pain in my side in order to avoid any trip to an ER, OR or even Urgent Care. It is my belief that the more times I enter a medical facility, the less likely I am to emerge. Law of averages, I guess. Bad breath and semi-frequent nerve pain seemed like a better alternative than arriving at Sunset Smiles in a Honda Civic but leaving in a hearse.
Arguably the most stressful day of my life would be taking place in the nearest big city some 80 miles away. Dr Payne just had to be the name of the man in control of safely returning me home. I scoured the internet for reviews and insight into his character. Was he a drinker? Would this slaughtering of my gums be taking place mere hours after a bender? Fifty-eight glowing reviews dimmed in comparison to the dozen or less scorning screeds. There was a chance of calamity. Like a scab, the more I picked, the worse it got, but my dumb ass just kept stumbling across potential demerits to the good doc’s competence. Something about that smile just seemed forced and fake.
My sister volunteered to escort me to and from. Usually, we joke around when we’re together but the lengthy ride was mostly spent in silence devising new ways my life could end in that chair. A current of conspicuous cream could ooze into my bloodstream and render me septic, a fumble of the forceps could rip open an artery and bleed me out, a desperate yank could cause a stubborn tooth to fly down my gullet and choke me to death. The last had actually nearly happened to me a few years prior.
Of course we showed up a full 45 minutes before my appointment. In my pocket was a portal to any and all forms of time-killing entertainment, none of which I felt like exploring. Even with the copious amounts of paperwork that seemed to ask the same three questions ten times, the minutes meandered like molasses. To make matters worse, the butterflies in my gut eventually caused me to feel like I had to take a huge dump but the ticking of the Doomsday Clock caught me in a pickle of time management. Just great. Add “pissing or shitting my pants during surgery” to the litany of worries I had. Never can have enough of those.
The clock read fifteen minutes past but my name still went uncalled. They could have knocked me out by then. Whatever was going to happen should have already happened. Finally, a nurse called my label, which had never paralyzed me in shock before. I shot up and followed her, feeling like I was walking the Green Mile to my potential execution. The office shared strip mall space with four other occupants but the halls still felt winding and unending. At the end of the last corridor, I was ushered in.
More waiting.
It had to be half past now. The added tension only gave me more opportunity to create unlikely, but not impossible, scenarios. It was here it dawned on me I had zero clue what the semantics of this disfigurement entailed. How would my jaw stay propped open for 90 minutes? What autonomy did I have to offer to help guide him to our collective goal? Halfway through an unexpected intrusive thought of the upper middle-aged man dropping dead of a heart attack as this sick portrait remained half-painted, he jump-scared into view.
“I see you’re here for a full extraction?” His questioning with a degree of ambiguity frightened me to no end. Had he prepared at all? Had he been briefed on my shitty gag reflex? Did he get the memo from my hometown referral that I was allergic to penicillin? More concerns flooded my brain.
“yes,” I meekly replied like a child and not a grown man. I then stupidly tried to crack the ice with a joke about how my decay was 99.5% unfortunate genetics with a tiny blame attached to my childhood and early adult habit of sucking down soda like it was being pulled from the shelves. His surgical mind didn’t process it as a gag.
Dr Payne waved in the nurse from earlier to take some vitals. She expressed trepidation with my blood pressure, a factor I hadn’t even considered during my hours of foreboding rumination. Payne, a man who meant no offense but couldn’t lie, did not wait until I was safe and sound to tell me I was a few points away from being sent home until I found a way to calm down. That threshold was likely matched or surpassed as I signed the waiver.
Before I knew it, a gas mask of anesthesia was placed over my face. This was the moment of truth; the step I was more petrified of than any other. I was a complete stranger to huffing gas. I had no clue how to do it. Being a reader of horror books, I remembered King’s “The Jaunt” in which a young boy purposely fails to inhale a very similar solution so he could experience centuries-long space travel rather than be sedated through it, with disastrous results. If I could avoid an underdose, I might be golden. I wasn’t taking any chances. I demanded Payne to crank it up as much as possible despite my unproven tolerance with drugs of any kind. I gulped it down as best I could and waited for the daze.
I’ll admit: I was worried about nothing. Doc really knew what he was doing. I haven’t felt a thing. I would describe it as a nice long nap. This stuff makes an hour and a half feel like an eternity.