Saturday, April 19, 2003.
Work:
Later tonight,
and early (5 a.m.) tomorrow so
I can get to Sun Su's baptism.
Play: Tao Feng on Xbox.
Congratulations
to Karen
!!
for her beautiful Corean-Scottish baby angel.
(It takes one woman nine months to have a baby,
no matter how many men you put on the job. -- Frisch's Law.)
EXTRACTING WISDOM
"Never let a surgeon take your patient."
-- Loeb's Fourth Law of MedicineAs I sat in the dentist's chair, I mean the oral surgeon's chair, it dawned on me that this is probably why people hate dentists so much. Pain. It hurts when something that's become an innate part of your being for your entire adult life is extracted. In this case, two of my four wisdom teeth. I've been putting it off for years, so now was the time.
The oral surgeon asked me,
"So what kind of doctor are you?"
He pretty much resembled the surgeon stereotype. The hair was crawling out of his sleeves and his scrubs top, inversely correlating with his advanced premature balding. He was a friendly guy in a high-testosterone don't-slow-me-down kind of way.
"Internal medicine," I answered, "Hospitalist."
In other words, the kind of doctor you are usually in the most conflicts with. Most of the time internists and surgeons work in harmony, but sometimes our beliefs clash when it comes to the best way of taking care of a patient who falls in the gray areas of our data doctrines, the lost souls.
In the end, things usually work out after a little reasoning and lot of faith is shared in one another.
Unlike everyone else, he didn't ask when my last meal was today. I wasn't supposed to drink or eat anything for six hours prior. But my sweet tooth got the best of me and I drank a bottle of strawberry Quik three hours prior. Doctors make the worst patients. One reason being, we can use our knowledge for personal evil and rationalize things like that.
For instance, rationalizing the strawberry Quik:
1. It's a liquid, most of it will be absorbed from my stomach in three hours easily. (I'd have to look this up.)
2. I was feeling weak and I needed the calories so I could have an adequate stress-reaction to the surgery and not start shaking in relative hypoglycemia before I even got into the chair. (Elaborate, yes. True, maybe not so "yes.")
3. Come on, this isn't like REAL surgery. I'm going to be in a dentist's chair for Christ's sake. (Sorry, EARMUFFS! - to be explained later.)The staff had already asked me twice if I had eaten/drank anything. Each time I would try to minimize my transgression (by lying about it more and more of course).
When the desk clerk asked, I said, "I had some chocolate milk four hours ago." Strawberry Quik would have just sounded silly.
When the dental assistant asked, I said, "I just had a glass of milk, six hours ago." The "boy scout without a cause" excuse.
If the oral surgeon had asked, I might have replied with, "I confess I was forced to down some dairy substance six hours and one minute prior to this procedure. Forgive me."
The dentist never talks to his patient until the drill is in their mouths.
-- Goldstein's Axiom"Have you ever had surgery or anesthetic before?" the oral surgeon asked (back to reality now).
"Nope. Never."
I'm all natural baby. Just the way nature evolved me.
"First time, I see. We'll use the Versed I.V. Well, this will be good way to tell your patients what they're in store for."
Eh … but no one told me what I'm in store for.
"Open your mouth wide," he insisted and jammed a cushion in my mouth to immobilize it.
"Tell me if the mask is too tight," the assistant said while I muffled something unintelligible.
"I've been a patient before," the surgeon continued,
" … Many times."
Hurghh?
"Great veins," he said as he looked at my hand to insert the I.V.
Stick.
Then everything was painted black.
The last thing I remember was the oral surgeon taping the I.V. to my hand. That's the wonders of I.V. Versed. It acts fast and gives you "retrograde amnesia," meaning you will forget things that occurred at least fifteen minutes before you actually got it. That's kind of weird when you experience it.
The last thing I remember was the oral surgeon taping the I.V. to my hand. That's the wonders of I.V. Versed. It acts fast and gives you "retrograde amnesia," meaning you will forget things that occurred at least fifteen minutes before you actually got it. That's kind of weird when you experience it.
(That repeat paragraph was my idea of an amnesia joke.)
What I do remember was staring at a gold plated circular emblem. It was divided into quadrants like an electronic Simon Says toy. In each quadrant were the busy dental people around me, seen almost as if in a promotional "documentary" video, all centered around me. The surgeon was in the upper right hand quadrant working on my mouth. The assistant was in the lower left quadrant.
The little show lasted for about five minutes to me, although it was much longer in reality.
These pills can't be habit-forming. I've been taking them for years.
-- Shalit's Drugstore Observation
I don't remember much after that until I was home. He gave me scripts for Motrin, Penicillin, and Vicodin (extra strength).
The penicillin amused me. It's a good dental choice, but according to the latest susceptibility reports from my hospital, 91% of the staphylococcus I am exposed to everyday and probably colonized with would laugh at penicillin and dance with it like devils in flames.
Penicillin still works against good ol' syphilis. What exactly did they do to me while I was out, anyways?
(Syphilis was one of the most common and devastating infectious diseases in human history until Penicillin was used in the 1940s. VD is nothing to clap about.)
I was expecting more from the Vicodin, but it just makes me lazy, and a little more lax with punctuation. With it's addictive properties and the desperate look in some of my addicted patients' eyes, I was expecting orgasmic bliss or at least visions of gingerbread femininja-angels cartwheeling in my dreams. No angels for me, I guess.
I never take pills in front of Sun Su, even Motrin. And I try to exclaim "EARMUFFS!" whenever I feel like swearing in front of him. (From a gag in Old School, where Vince Vaughn would say "earmuffs" and his son would cover his ears before he'd start swearing.)
It's been a week and I'm mostly on a liquid diet, because it still aches when I eat or yawn.
All said and done, the wisdom teeth extraction was a lot better than I expected. And a lot less painful than the meeting we had with our pastor last week. He wanted to take something that was growing in me for most of my adult life as well. But I'm not ready to give that up yet, or even write about it just yet. Sort of.
I do not think I want to pass my atheist beliefs on to my boy though, which is why he's getting baptized this Sunday.
The whole point of atheism is knowing that you are ultimately alone, anyways. I don't really want Sun Su to think that. Doesn't matter if I think I am wrong or right.
It helps to invent your own angels sometimes.
It's not a matter of life or death - it's much more important than that.
-- The Patient's Rule Concerning his Symptoms.
______________________________
MEDEA SIN HOT MODEL
Today's HOT MODEL is
I remember when Tracy was still just a sweet lil baby in the online journal world, with the pastels and the cute little chickadee. Then she moved and became a little more open in her aptly-titled journal, fanfuckintastic.net (Earmuffs!).
She has always been one of my favorite people and her journal brings a smile to my face whether she's ranting or having a few good days or just meeting Alec Baldwin on a bad hair day. The girl can write no wrong. (Um, you know what I mean.)
Now, she's finally sent me a coy picture of her beautiful self hiding behind a mug with my Asian superhero drawing on it. Despite my pleas for an unmasked Tracy picture, this one will have to do. Superheroes have to keep their secret identities, you know.
(Click here to become a MEDEA SIN HOT MODEL for next time.
It's free, just send me a picture, hot stuff. Show some balls, guys ... don't take that literally please.)
