Before I talk about yesterday, I need to mention that Rita had her first chemo treatment yesterday. Eric talked to her, and she says she feels fine. Continued prayers are welcomed.

I should probably be in bed right now, but after spending all day in bed yesterday, I found myself completely unable to sleep though the pain last night. I'm compromising; Eric set me up on the couch with the laptop, and I'm taking it easy for the day. I sent Eric to work, too, with the agreement that he should stay by his phone all day in case I should need to call him home. Just me, my ice packs, my heating pad, and my codeine - oh, and Sam, of course.

I want to talk about yesterday before it fades from memory.

Warning: if you have a dental phobia and are feeling particularly sensitive today, you may not want to read this.

I woke up early in the morning, wondering how to handle Sam's morning nursing - a staple in his routine. I needed to take an Ativan pill an hour before surgery, and the pharmacist had recommended that I wait six hours after taking it to nurse Sam. But it was 5:30 in the morning, and Sam doesn't usually wake until around 7. After a few minutes, I concluded that he was going to have to get up early anyway to come to the office, so I murmured the suggestion of "nur-nurs" into his ear, and he promptly rolled over and began his day in his preferred manner.

The Ativan was a blessing. It made me feel relaxed and cheerful, totally able to handle anything that came my way. Eric rolled me into the car and drove us to the office, where I signed my name on the clipboard in a handwriting that didn't even resemble my own. The receptionist sent me to the bathroom; "Many people have to pee when the IV starts," she explained. Then she guided me to the room and into the chair.

The dentist came in and began to prepare me for the "procedure." He put a blood pressure cuff on my arm, and while the hygienists began to put other sensors on me, he started the IV in the back of my hand. I felt a pinch and closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew, I was feeling a strong, rather painful tugging in my lower jaw. I opened my eyes in surprise and saw that I was in the middle of the surgery! It hurt like mad, and I felt them pulling harder and harder. I was too weak to talk, even if several pairs of hands hadn't been in my mouth, so I just moaned and tried to raise my hand.

"Now stop crying," somebody said. "Please keep your hands down."

I was frantic now; I didn't want to have the surgery while I was awake! I grabbed for a nurse's hand to try to let her know. She squeezed it for a second, and then firmly placed it back on the arm of the chair. The pulling continued; all I could think was that in a minute, the tooth was going to break away, and it would be just the way Eric recalls his own extraction, done under Novocain and nitrous oxide: "like a gunshot going off in my head." Suddenly I felt something pop, and I think I blacked out.

I wish it had only been one time, for a few seconds, that it happened, but it wasn't. I woke again and again. Once, it was to the feeling of having the left side of my mouth cranked further and further open (recalling scenes from that horrid movie, The Dentist); another time, it was to even harder pulling and jerking. Each time, I tried to alert the dentist to my consciousness, and each time, I was told to "Stop crying" and to keep my hands still.

Finally, I awoke for the last time. A hygienist in the room informed me that it was "All done!" and I tried to sit up. "Oh, no, stay there; we need to get your husband." She was still disconnecting my IV and the various wires on my body. I lay back down and closed my eyes, and when I reopened them, Eric was there and helping me out of the chair.

My memory is sporadic for the rest of the morning. Eric took me home and helped me into bed. (I know we must have stopped at the pharmacy on the way home, but I don't recall it at all.) He gave me a codeine pill, I think, and I slept for a few hours. At one point, Alysia cam over; at another, Sam threw a huge fit ("I want my mama!") to such an extent that Eric finally caved and brought him upstairs, where he cried on my arm and tried to climb on me until Eric carried him away.

In the evening, I finally felt a little hungry, so I came downstairs and crashed on the couch while Eric made me Spaghettios. When I was finally able to take another codeine (Eric's a stickler about that sort of thing), I immediately went back upstairs to bed.

I had really hoped to have an experience like those people were recounting to me: complete oblivion during the surgery itself, then minimal pain during the recovery. I guess I'm just unlucky in those regards. Not only did I get to be awake and aware during my worst nightmare, but now I'm in utter agony. The pain pills don't seem to help much at all, and the ice packs, arnica, and (today) heating pads haven't stopped my face from blowing up into a huge, painful balloon. I hurt from my eyebrows to the base of my throat.

Now I'm hearing in my weblog comments that it's not uncommon for redheads to have trouble with anesthesia. I wish I had known that yesterday, though I doubt I'd have been able to convince the dentist, anyway. It makes me oddly glad that I decided to have Sam naturally; I'd have been ticked in the extreme to have chosen an anesthetic and not have it take effect. I suppose that we do better as we know better; next time, you had better believe that I will make any medical professional with whom I deal believe me when I say that I'll need extra drugs. Before, with my nightmare dental experience, I believed that the problem was with that dentist. Now I know that the issue is my freaky body.

I have to go back on Tuesday for a follow-up appointment. I have one Ativan left; they had me bring the pill to the surgery, but I never used it. I think it's going to be necessary to get me through the door this time; "Stop crying," indeed."