Monday, March 29, 2010

ORAL SURGERY, TEXTING AND OBAMACARE

My sweet son had all four wisdom teeth extracted this morning.

I am exhausted for many reasons.

I did not sleep well last night because, even though he is almost 19 years old, I lay awake most of the night praying for his comfort and worrying about complications.

The surgeon was running late today. SURPRISE!!! a surgeon who is not on schedule.

When we got back to his office, we realized why he was running late.

Boy can that doctor talk.

And boy does he talk fast. So fast it wore me out trying to listen to him.

I was picturing a child who had eaten his whole Easter basket full of candy, downed a RedBull and then spent the day with Grandma.

I've never seen a doctor so passionate about his work.

By the time he finished with his consultation with us, I felt my eye twitching and I noticed that Blake was having a hard time keeping a straight face. Also, I completely forgot everything he said to us.

He did tell us that patients react to anesthesia in one of four ways:

-weepy, which could escalate into "wailing of Biblical proportions"
-child of the sixties...mellow and thoroughly happy with the drugs they've been given
-loopy and overly friendly....flirting with the nurses
-cussing like a sailor...which will lead the parents of said patient to attempt to crawl under the bed


Then the doctor clasped all our hands and began praying with us - praying that Blake would recover well and that he himself would do a good job for this patient brought to him. Maybe that's why I forgot everything he said to us....my mind was on this wonderful testimony of his faith.

I also realized then why Dr. K spoke so fast and with such enthusiasm - the man is high on God.

I then spent my time in the waiting room praying that Blake did not awaken from his procedure cussing like a sailor, or in our case, a marine. I also prayed that he did not try to cop a feel on one of the nurses, especially since one of the nurses was the mother of his homecoming date.

Thirty minutes later, we were escorted back to his recovery room. One look at him in bed and we knew which category of anesthesia reaction he met....MELLOW AND HIGH AS A KITE. Our son is a child of the sixties

Things were looking PRIT. TEEE groovy for our boy. He seemed to be especially enthralled with the lights and other shiny objects.

He saw us in the doorway and smiled real big and gave us a big thumbs up. I never thought I'd be so happy that my son was a stoner.

He continued with the smiles and. thumbs up sign for several minutes until he told us (through sign language) that he wanted to write us notes.

He wrote us such messages as;

drugs are sweet

doctor is cool

drugs are awesome

How did they get me in here

and my favorite

liberals suck.

Now we are home changing gauze packing every 30 minutes and administering drugs every two hours.

And I am falling in love with texting all over again.

If I'm not in the room with him, Blake texts me for what he needs. If I am in the room with him, he types a text, lets me reads it, then deletes it.

When his Tylenol with codeine kicked in and he fell asleep, I lay down on my bed for a while to catch a little nap. I awoke to my phone vibrating and Blake texting me "new gauze, please."

Texting is the best new medical aid of the 21st century.

But I seriously doubt Obamacare will cover it as a legitimate medical expense.

2 comments:

Beaner said...

Jessica loves to leave me notes on my phone! That girl has already figured out something on my cell that I didn't even know I could do. I am in DEEP trouble when she gets old enough to have a phone of her own - I will DEFINATELY need an unlimited texting pkg!

Glad Blake's a stoner! I hope I can be that way too - I really need my wisdom teeth out too, but I haven't done it yet!

BTW - It's OBAMACARES! ;)

HW said...

Beaner - in our experience, girls text more than boys so YES get unlimited texting. And when she has....oh....say...TWELVE THOUSAND texts in one month simply fold the bill and put it away, remind yourself it is unlimited.

OBAMACARES? Um....okay. I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole. But I have been wondering if this impacts your family with Nick and his allergies at all. If so, I'm truly happy for you.