Laughter, Penguins, and Fainting

I had to have oral surgery to remove a bad tooth a few weeks ago. This is what happened.

I had to wake up at 7:20 on the morning of my surgery. My dad was taking me because you are not allowed to drive yourself home afterwards and he is a stickler for being on time. This is quite inconvenient as being late is one of my major weaknesses; however, I was uncharacteristically prepared for this morning and hastily threw on my favorite jeans (now with holes in the knees from falling down the stairs at the institute building) and a white shirt t-shirt I usually sleep in but somehow thought would be comforting I had laid out the night before. My dad and I get in the car at 7:40, thirty five minutes before my surgery is scheduled and drive twenty minutes to the oral surgeons office in Sumter. After waiting a surprisingly short time, a nurse come to get me and leads me back to the surgery room. I don’t actually know what it was called. It looked like a normal dentist room, except it was for surgery thus: surgery room. As we are walking back, the nurse says “You sure are smiley. You aren’t nervous?” “Not really” I reply. This is a lie. Despite the blessing I got the day before, I still don’t like the idea of being injected with some sort of medicine that renders me unconscious, but you know what they say, fake it ‘til you make it. As soon as I sit down in the dentist chair, the nurse puts on a mask that gives me laughing gas. I really hate the smell. The surgeon comes in and I am reminded again how glad I am that I chose him over this other dentist I had seen a month earlier in Columbia. This man is all smiles and reminds me of my dad. The other man reminded me of Napoleon, telling me I had several problems with my teeth but not to worry he would fix them all through multiple surgeries and for thousands of dollars. Not to mention his office was a funeral home in a past life. Almost as soon as I was out the door, I was calling my dentist for another referral. My new surgeon leaves the room and I am left to chat with the nurse about my major and other easy topics of conversation knowing all the while she is just waiting for me to stop making sense so she knows the medicine is working. This makes me determined to make sense for as long as I possibly can. I am still doing pretty well when the surgeon comes back into the room to give me the IV. He makes a big show of pretending he is going to stick it in my neck instead of my arm and I can’t help giggling. Blast! I have finally lost. When the nurse clamps things on both my wrists and one of my fingers to monitor my vital signs during the surgery, I start really giggling picturing how funny I must look with all these things coming off me. The nurse assures me that it is all quite normal to them but I can hear the laughter in her voice all the same. The next thing I remember I am being asked to pick out a ring I suppose because I was such a good girl during the surgery. She suggests I take a pink one to which I reply with an emphatic "no. " I have a slight vendetta against the color pink ever since I was a nanny for a little girl in college who was ALWAYS wearing pink when I got there. She was always wearing a different color when I left because I had to change her after feeding her lunch. I thought this was a major victory against pink. After speaking with various mothers, I have been informed they always dress girls in pink so they will not be confused with boys. I still think it is slightly ridiculous to always dress them in pink, but whatever. I ended up choosing a blue on with a penguin on it. I don’t remember making that decision, but I have always liked penguins. The nurse leaves to go get my dad and the surgeon comes back in from whatever he was doing, washing up or something I imagine. He notices my ring and tells me conspiratorially that they are really for children, which I could deduce even in my semi-drugged state seeing that it would only fit on my pinky; however, he does his best to find me one slightly larger like I am going to wear it every day after this, but in the end only succeeds in moving it from one hand to the other. When the nurse comes back in she says something about this, but I can’t make my body respond to her even though I am thinking of it. All of the sudden I am aware of how terrible I feel. I’m hot and dizzy but can’t manage to tell anyone this. They try and get me to sit up, but I can't. They ask me what is wrong and I just say “hot” and then I think I fainted. The next thing I remember a nurse has a cold cloth on my forehead and my dad is holding my hand. They try and get me to sit up again but still nothing. I tell my brain to get up but nothing happens. At this point I hear my dad saying that he is taking my things to the car and will come back to get me. He lets go of my hand, a fect I both notice and dislike. At this point I think I lose consciousness again but when I hear my dad’s voice again I automatically reach out my hand for him to hold again. They must have thought I was really in trouble because by this point there was another nurse in the room who remarks “Honey, you are as white as your shirt!” (insert Cory here saying “did you tell them that was normal?”) The two nurses and my dad manage to get me up and take me out the special door they use for patients as they exit as not to frighten those waiting for their turn. As we are walking in the parking lot I throw up blood which should have frightened me, but it didn’t. Turns out a lot of that runs down your throat during the surgery. One of the nurses says “I thought that was going to happen” which seemed to me a very stupid thing to say. When they finally get me in the car, I am feeling slightly better but still only semi conscious and as thirsty as I have ever been in my life. My thought then is how awful it would be to be in hell if that is really how it feels. As we are driving home my dad asks if there is anything I need and I manage to croak out “water” so my dad stops to get me some and after that I don’t remember anything until I am in my room and fall into bed and almost immediately go to sleep. I wake up a few hours later with the penguin ring still on my finger and feeling completely fine.
I had my check up a few days ago and Dr. Marks said everything was great and he was glad that I was okay. Apparently they were all quite worried about me. Not that I wouldn’t make it, he assured me, but just in general. And the nurse made a note in my file so if I ever have to have surgery again, I won't have a repeat experience.