2 Girls, 1 Mouth: The Sequel

Instruments of exquisite torture

To be completely truthful, this post should be entitled Two Hygienists, Two Nurses, a Dentist, a Surgeon, and One Dirty Mouth: The Sequel.


About a month prior to my fantastic Caribbean vacation, I visited my wonderful dentist for a regularly scheduled cleaning and exam. During the exam, my most excellent hygienist, Andrea, examined a spot on my gum that I pointed out to her as feeling like a blister. Sure enough, I had a dental abscess.

The abscess was located next to a couple of teeth Dr. Arrick had previously suggested I have removed, but in my wisdom, I had decided to keep them in place for as long as possible. Based on both the hygienist's and dentist's assessment, "as long as possible" had finally arrived. There was an open slot in Dr. Arrick's schedule, so I just moved down the hall into the "extraction suite" and took a seat in preparation for the procedure.

As Dr. Arrick came at me with a syringe full of pain killer, I reminded her that I am hard to numb. If she is going in, she needs to go in hard and deep. She will know she got it in deep enough when a single tear runs down my cheek. She laughed and said, "Oh Glenn, you are so funny." My dentist has  a dirty mind, apparently, but there was no tear.

Insert joke here

After a few minutes to let the medicine work, she came back to perform the extraction. She did a little magic around the gums and then went in with the pliers and started tugging. The medicine was not working. The pain was pretty intense. After three more attempts at numbing my jaw, I was sent home with a prescription for an antibiotic to clear up the infection and an appointment to return in 10 days.

Ten days later, it was exactly the same experience (see above). Since she could not get me numb enough to complete the extraction, Dr. Arrick suggested I see an oral surgeon. The surgeon could see me in a few days, but that would be only a day or two before I departed for vacation and I thought that was a bad idea. Besides, it was apparent these two teeth were determined to accompany me to Barbados.

Flash forward three weeks.....
Four days after returning from a most excellent trip, I was tan, happy, and patiently waiting in the Surgeon's reception room. Since is was a same-day surgery center, the wait was a long one. I arrived on time at 8:30, but my procedure did not start until around 11:00. Thank goodness for my most excellent manager, Rachel, who was able to rearrange her schedule in order to wait for me.

When I finally got called back, the nurse began reviewing the procedure with me. We discussed bone grafting just in case I wanted to have dental implants sometime in the future. I asked her what type of material would be used in the grafts. She responded,"irradiated, ground cadaver bone." I was slightly horrified, but that did not stop me from responding with "Well, I guess this will be the first time someone else's bone has been in my mouth for a reason other than fun." She was not amused.

Let's talk about my book.

When it was finally time to begin, two nurses came in to wire me up and insert the IV that would send me off to dreamland. I was warned that I would feel a little drunk, which was not problem considering "a little drunk" is one of my preferred feelings. When the drip started so did my mouth. I was talking and talking and talking some more. I started explaining the plot of the novel I am considering and asking all types of questions about the decline of taste as you age. After a few minutes of me blathering on and on, one nurse said to the other, "That doesn't seem to be working. Let's try the other arm." I thought it was working like a charm - especially since I was in a decidedly happier mood than I had been 10 minutes earlier. And suddenly, it was lights out.

Until I woke up - earlier than planned.

When I came to, there was a big plastic ring holding my mouth open. A man, with shiny tools appeared to be sewing something while chatting about his weekend plans. I was just lying there watching and listening when he noticed me, at which time he alerted the nurse that I was awake. Like magic, I was no longer awake.

When I next awoke, all dentistry apparatus had been removed and I was escorted to the lobby where my wonderful manager and friend greeted me with a smile and took me home. I few minutes after I arrive home, my most excellent neighbor, Troy, dropped off my pain medications and other prescriptions required for recovery. Then I went to bed.

A few weeks later, I was telling this story to my dear friends Cathy and Arjay over Videri chocolates and glasses of wine. Cathy asked about the next steps in this grand journey of dental implantation. When I told her I would be having a cat scan in a few months to make sure I was not rejecting the bone grafts, she immediately responded, "That mouth has never rejected a bone."

Touche my friend. Well played!