general

I’ve been knocked out for minor surgeries twice before, and they were both very different from today’s experience.  The first time, I was fifteen and having all four wisdom teeth taken out.  I remember getting in the chair, and I remember talking to Bob the Anesthesiologist.  I remember they couldn’t find a vein to put the IV in, and they poked and prodded and finally, when they threatened to stick the needle in my big toe, a vein popped out in my hand.  Apparently.  The last thing I remember before waking up in the room across the hall is Bob the Anesthesiologist saying something about howling at the moon.  The second time was about four and a half years ago.  I had a septoplasty and I remember the doctor putting the IV in before we went into the operating room.  My next memory is of getting dressed to go home.

This morning, they waited so long to knock me out that I was a little afraid they’d forgotten that part.  I walked into the room, sat on the chair.  Waited.   They took my glasses off and put protective glasses on me.   More people came in, they strapped my arms to the arms of the chair (way to keep me calm, guys), and then they draped a hose over my face and told me to breathe through my nose.  Then they propped my mouth open.  I was getting more and more tense by the second.  I could hear all this stuff happening, but I couldn’t see anything, I wasn’t numb, and I was STILL AWAKE.

Then they stabbed me in the arm.  Seriously, they weren’t gentle.

Next thing I remember, I was staring at the light overhead, listening to noises I could make NO sense of, and then I remembered where I was.  And I TOTALLY understood why they won’t let you drive yourself home.  Ten minutes later, in the car, I was convinced I could drive right then.  (I was probably wrong.  Thankfully, John wasn’t up for testing my theory.)

I’m home, the numbness has worn off, and the whole right side of my face aches.  I’m supposed to keep an ice pack on it, 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off, for the first two days.  Let me tell you something.  It’s H A R D hard to do almost anything but watch TV when you’re holding an ice pack to your face.

My 20 minutes off is over now, so I can’t type any more.  (No, I’m not going to tie this thing to my head somehow.)

Weddings are fun.  No.  Rephrase.  Dancing is fun.  I don’t particularly like the actual wedding part.  We whispered and giggled through most of the ceremony.  Unobtrusively of course, although the people seated directly behind us might not agree.  How else were supposed to get through this wedding we really didn’t want to go to?  Whenever a response was given by the congregation, I had this urge to shout horribly inappropriate things.  (You’ll be happy to know I restrained myself.)  That’s more to do with my feelings on religion in general than this wedding.

Get down tonight.

I was washing my hands at work, and when I leaned forward to rinse them, I saw a glint in the mirror at the very top of my head.  Looked a little closer and…yeah.  That’s a gray hair.

WHY am I incapable of remembering to go to CVS?

It has begun.  I had a consultation with the oral surgeon today, and I have an appointment to be knocked unconscious and have my jaw broken in three weeks.  Okay, they’re not breaking my jaw.  They’re just pulling a tooth.  Still.  It’s going to suck.  This was actually a second consultation for the same thing.  I was there about a year and a half ago, planning the same extraction (which totally sounds like we’re going to get our troops out from behind enemy lines, but behind enemy lines is my #2 molar), and they wanted to know why I’m back now.  What changed?  Insurance.  We didn’t have dental insurance the first time around, then we were unemployed, then we were employed, but too lazy to go to the dentist, and that’s more information than the assistant to the oral surgeon really needs.

Have you tried pretzel m&ms?  They’re really good.

I went to a weird place just now, on one of those thought tangents that’s so convoluted I can’t trace it back, and now I have “paranoia, they destroy ya” looping through my brain.  Not what I want to fall asleep to.

This tree is right outside the main door to my office building.  The light yesterday morning was perfect, so clear.  I’d like to have a grove of these trees in my yard (near my yard, accessible from my yard – with a clearing.  And a brook!) someday.  My yard that’s out in the country somewhere.  I just haven’t found it yet.  It would help if I started looking.  That’s true of a lot of things.

I’m in a rambling mood without much to ramble about, so before I bore everyone to tears (Too late, you say?  I’ll send you some kleenex.), I’m going to stop.  Here.  No, here.  Right now.

A threat on the wall in the dentist’s waiting room:

All unattended children will be given espresso and a free puppy.

I wonder how many children beg their parents to be left alone there. Maybe not that many.  It is the dentist’s office.  Although a puppy would be a powerful motivator to behave during your cleaning.  It might also be a powerful motivator to stop brushing your teeth so you HAVE to go to the dentist and get a puppy.

I don’t think they thought this through.  I think I’M reading too much into it.  And I’ve gotten away from the point of the sign.

Still.  PUPPIES.

The end.