Mechanical engineer, material scientist. Loves to run, play billiards, swim, and be outdoors.
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Saturday, January 03, 2004
All right. Whats up, everyone?
I went to the oral surgeon and had 3 wisdom teeth pulled today. At least one was impacted into the jaw, so they recommended a sedative. Nothing like having pliers pulling teeth out like nails in plywood. Fun stuff!
So I sit down in the chair, get all comfy. They attach EKG electrodes to me, a stethoscope, and a blood pressure cuff (just so that if I started to die they'd have a chance to save me...meh, they shouldn't have made the effort if I did start to die...they'd be doing me quite the favor!).
They put an oxygen mask over my face, and then the doctor said he was going to place the IV for the sedative, and I requested that the mask be removed so that I could watch.
He was taken aback at this (most patients can't stand it, evidently), but he complied. And I looked at the IV, and I was like "No way! That thing is THICK!!!" [By thick, it was ~2 millimeters at its widest point].
And he jabs me. And it hurt, but not a whole lot. Then he's tells the nurse to get him a second one, and I'm sitting there going, "A SECOND ONE?!?"
He explained that he couldn't get a good connection into the vein because my muscle was too big (no, I'm not lying, I'm being VERY serious), and that shocked me...me? huge muscles?!?
So he jabs me yet again. I swear for this one they used a wider IV, because it hurt more than the first. And then he starts fiddling and playing with it, and I'm on the verge of saying "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?". But he seemed satisfied, and the most painful experience of the day (to that point...and even that wasn't painful, just a little sting), was when they taped it down...the needle bulged up against the skin, and that sorta was disgusting, but it was really cool to see! I sorta expected it to burst through, and was sort of hoping that it would, as well, just because that would make for a cool "war story".
This sedative was only to to act like a mind expanding drug...sort of make me hallucinate and feel all high and crap, dull the pain, and leave me wondering who I am, and where am I? The doctor told me that the sedative would leave me completely responsive to taking orders like "keep breathing!" or "tilt your head a bit"..."keep breathing!" being the more important of the two).
What actually happened was this: the nurse's attached EKG electrodes, a stethoscope, and a blood pressure cuff (to monitor my vitals in case of an emergency...mandatory for when IV sedatives are used, I guess...not that I'm going to complain about increasing safety).
The nurses were constantly telling me, "Just relax! Relax! Relax!", almost like Ron does. Unlike when he does it, I started to get annoyed at them.
Lets put it this way: your heart beat is a direct indicator of your state of relaxation. My resting heart beat is somewhere in the mid-50s. Listening the EKG sound off, I was in the low 50s after I was all strapped in. The average adult has a resting pulse of ~70. So I was the ultimate in relaxed. It was like going to Brookstones and and staying in their chairs for a few hours without being harrassed to kicked out of the store at gunpoint...not that that has ever happened before...no-sir-ree!
My response to the nurses pestering at me to relax was this: I fell asleep.
Right there. On the operating chair. With all these pointy objects around me. With pliers that were soon afterward ripping out several of my teeth.
So I made out fine, woke up with this huge mass of gauze in my mouth. I was asked to get up and go to the Recovery Room, but I had some difficulty in that my legs mutinied against my brains attempt to get them to go one in front of the other.
Then I noticed that the entire left side of my face was numb, all the way up to, and including the ear (I got feeling back only a couple hours ago, and I'm starting to think he ripped the nerves out of my gums or something, because I've got that weird "numb" feeling in my mouth).
And then I learn the devastating news: no coarse foods, no solid foods, no hot foods, no hot drinks, etc., for the next 24 hours. DAMN!!! For those of you who don't know me all that well, here is my view of food: I'm hungry. I'm starving. I just ate. When I eat, I'm a serious eater. Who's a bad eater? I'm a bad eater? How bad? Real bad! On a scale of 10.0 I'm a 12.0, baby! That rule pretty much eliminates my entire food supply...except for pudding...and we all know just how filling pudding is [not really, for those of you who are backwards and don't eat pudding]!
I'm hungry, but whatever. That just means I eat a huge amount tomorrow...mmmmm.........pancakes....or ribs....or I can stop fantasizing and go "mmm.......toast and butter....mmmmmm.....water".
More about stuff later. And I need to report on what I did for New Years.
I went to the oral surgeon and had 3 wisdom teeth pulled today. At least one was impacted into the jaw, so they recommended a sedative. Nothing like having pliers pulling teeth out like nails in plywood. Fun stuff!
So I sit down in the chair, get all comfy. They attach EKG electrodes to me, a stethoscope, and a blood pressure cuff (just so that if I started to die they'd have a chance to save me...meh, they shouldn't have made the effort if I did start to die...they'd be doing me quite the favor!).
They put an oxygen mask over my face, and then the doctor said he was going to place the IV for the sedative, and I requested that the mask be removed so that I could watch.
He was taken aback at this (most patients can't stand it, evidently), but he complied. And I looked at the IV, and I was like "No way! That thing is THICK!!!" [By thick, it was ~2 millimeters at its widest point].
And he jabs me. And it hurt, but not a whole lot. Then he's tells the nurse to get him a second one, and I'm sitting there going, "A SECOND ONE?!?"
He explained that he couldn't get a good connection into the vein because my muscle was too big (no, I'm not lying, I'm being VERY serious), and that shocked me...me? huge muscles?!?
So he jabs me yet again. I swear for this one they used a wider IV, because it hurt more than the first. And then he starts fiddling and playing with it, and I'm on the verge of saying "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?". But he seemed satisfied, and the most painful experience of the day (to that point...and even that wasn't painful, just a little sting), was when they taped it down...the needle bulged up against the skin, and that sorta was disgusting, but it was really cool to see! I sorta expected it to burst through, and was sort of hoping that it would, as well, just because that would make for a cool "war story".
This sedative was only to to act like a mind expanding drug...sort of make me hallucinate and feel all high and crap, dull the pain, and leave me wondering who I am, and where am I? The doctor told me that the sedative would leave me completely responsive to taking orders like "keep breathing!" or "tilt your head a bit"..."keep breathing!" being the more important of the two).
What actually happened was this: the nurse's attached EKG electrodes, a stethoscope, and a blood pressure cuff (to monitor my vitals in case of an emergency...mandatory for when IV sedatives are used, I guess...not that I'm going to complain about increasing safety).
The nurses were constantly telling me, "Just relax! Relax! Relax!", almost like Ron does. Unlike when he does it, I started to get annoyed at them.
Lets put it this way: your heart beat is a direct indicator of your state of relaxation. My resting heart beat is somewhere in the mid-50s. Listening the EKG sound off, I was in the low 50s after I was all strapped in. The average adult has a resting pulse of ~70. So I was the ultimate in relaxed. It was like going to Brookstones and and staying in their chairs for a few hours without being harrassed to kicked out of the store at gunpoint...not that that has ever happened before...no-sir-ree!
My response to the nurses pestering at me to relax was this: I fell asleep.
Right there. On the operating chair. With all these pointy objects around me. With pliers that were soon afterward ripping out several of my teeth.
So I made out fine, woke up with this huge mass of gauze in my mouth. I was asked to get up and go to the Recovery Room, but I had some difficulty in that my legs mutinied against my brains attempt to get them to go one in front of the other.
Then I noticed that the entire left side of my face was numb, all the way up to, and including the ear (I got feeling back only a couple hours ago, and I'm starting to think he ripped the nerves out of my gums or something, because I've got that weird "numb" feeling in my mouth).
And then I learn the devastating news: no coarse foods, no solid foods, no hot foods, no hot drinks, etc., for the next 24 hours. DAMN!!! For those of you who don't know me all that well, here is my view of food: I'm hungry. I'm starving. I just ate. When I eat, I'm a serious eater. Who's a bad eater? I'm a bad eater? How bad? Real bad! On a scale of 10.0 I'm a 12.0, baby! That rule pretty much eliminates my entire food supply...except for pudding...and we all know just how filling pudding is [not really, for those of you who are backwards and don't eat pudding]!
I'm hungry, but whatever. That just means I eat a huge amount tomorrow...mmmmm.........pancakes....or ribs....or I can stop fantasizing and go "mmm.......toast and butter....mmmmmm.....water".
More about stuff later. And I need to report on what I did for New Years.
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