Light Head

Last week, as I said, I scheduled my appointment to have teeth #6 and #12 removed in order to prepare for braces. After arranging final transportation arrangements with my friend Erik, I waited for Monday.

On the day, I had woken up early, but went back to sleep after an hour and a half out of boredom. Eventually, I came back around a little after 8, took a shower, brushed my teeth and got dressed. Erik called to get the directions and we took off down the street.

I checked into the clinic and eventually was given my paperwork after giving the x-rays and extraction order to the ladies at the front desk. After filling out the health history and consent form, they had me come back for panorex x-rays and periapical shots of the teeth they were removing. Soon, I was in the operatory meeting Dr. John Choi, the oral surgeon. Dr. Choi gave me a little background on himself and I was relieved to find that he's been doing oral surgery for 15 years. After a final check on my health history and forms, I was taken back to another operatory.

There, I was hooked up to a heart and respiration monitor. After a few minutes, I was given an intravenous bag of saline while the operating crew got ready. Everyone came in and they started the oxygen mask on me, and eventually started the nitrous oxide mix. The surgical assistant, whose name I didn't get - damn shame too, she was cute - then put a mask over my eyes to keep any fluids from going into them. The last thing I remember is looking up into grayish blue from the mask over my eyes.

The next thing I remember is getting into Erik's car with some assistance. Another gap of time passed and I am already upstairs opening the door to my apartment. Erik made sure I had everything I needed and I went inside and realized that my mouth was full of gauze. I didn't care about that because I knew why it was there and I proceeded to my room and promptly fell asleep for about an hour and a half.

When I woke back up, I got back out of bed and walked (yes, I'm out of my fucking mind!) to the bus stop to go to the pharmacy and then the Albertsons. I got my prescriptions filled (amoxicillin, 800 mgs of Motrin and my favorite, vicodin) and walked to Albertsons to get some soft foods and protein shakes to maintain some semblance of nutrition. By the time I got back to the bus stop to make my way home, I was feeling a bit more normal and spent the rest of the day recuperating by watching "Batman Begins."

Upon awakening the next morning, I was greeted by the taste of blood. My own. I think I became a self-parasitic vampire. This was nothing that couldn't be taken care of as I brushed my teeth and did a mild salt water rinse.

Yesterday, I called Dr. Graham's office to schedule my appointments. I was offered an appointment for next week but, due to financial constraints, I asked to be scheduled after the first of July. My first appointment is Tuesday, July 6th for spacers between my molars, then another appointment on Tuesday, July 13th in the afternoon to have braces put on.

So, this is it! It's all coming together at last. If I don't post another blog before then, check back on the 7th day of July. That's all for now.

Back Again

Well, it has been quite a while, hasn't it. A lot of things have changed, some went back the way they were and some new things have come into play, but most of this has nothing to do with the surgery. I'm sure I could have posted more stuff on here about it, but there really hasn't been anything to report in the way of what's been going on with this topic, so I hadn't felt much inclination to report on nothing. The other stuff that was happening, many of my friends already know about, but that wasn't related to this. So, time for an update.

After cancelling my appointment with Dr. Punim due to the cost factor, I went back to Dr. Graham's office. I received my surgery order and found that the treatment plan had changed so that he was going to extrude my right upper canine to bring it into place with the other teeth. This is not what he and I had previously discussed, so I called them back. Yesterday, I went in for another consultation and he issued me out a new extraction order, this time to remove the canine, as well as the first bicuspid in my upper left quadrant.

Today, I scheduled, or tried to schedule, an appointment to get the teeth extracted. Being that my dental office already has an oral surgeon, I decided to go through them since they already have all my records and they're going to be following me through this whole procedure. Tentatively, I'm schedule to have my teeth extracted on Monday morning, assuming that I can find a ride to get there and get back out of there since they're going to be sedating me. Probably a good thing since they're going to have to go into the hard palate to get the canine tooth pulled out.

So far, my main struggle is finding someone available to give me a ride so I can get there and back since they won't do the surgery without it. This is still pending, but I'm going to go ahead and schedule the appointment.

More to come.