Under The Knife

The Boy went into the operatory feeling only hungry. No nerves. Big teenage boy arm veins made the anesthesia easy. The oral surgeon is friendly and capable. The office staffers are enjoyable.

I'm still the mom though, and I was a little worried when the monitors started up and little beeps and blips began. Twenty minutes of surgery seems much longer in the waiting room.

The Boy, having seen several friends' home videos of post oral surgery, had joked that he's going to be swearing like a sailor as he comes out of the drugs. We'll see about that. If anything is worth sharing, I'll post for you later.

In the meantime, I wish there was some anti-anxiety medication for the moms.

Morphed

The cold I thought I had caught in time with various and sundry over the counter tricks has instead morphed into the mother of all sinus infections.  I got into see the doctor yesterday and he prescribed a Z pack for the antibiotics and a cough syrup with codeine.  But my head still feels like ti is going to explode.  Can you have a migraine AND a sinus infection?  I think I have both and it isn't right.  I'll keep you posted, but this kind of pain in my head is enough to drive me to harder drugs.

Post Op Surprises

The Girl's oral surgery went well yesterday. In fact, once I left hte room, pre-sedation, the doctor was out to tell me things went great in about 40 minutes. It was another hour almost before I got her to the car and we headed home. But that hour was one of the funniest I can remember.

I know that anesthesia does different things to different people. I knew that, but still didn't expect the hilarity of yesterday's post-operative recovery.

The Girl was so stoned. And I mean that in the very best sense of the word. She was watching her hand as she flopped it on and off her lap. She would hold her head up only long enough to turn it and flop it back over to the other side--real hurky-jerky. And she couldn't stop smiling. Considering her had a mouth full of gauze squares folded up to stop the bleeding, the smiling was pretty amazing.

She couldn't stop giggling though. That was funny. I still don't know what her drug-addled brain was thinking about but it must have been funny.

After a drop off of prescriptions--may I add, that drive up pharmacy windows are the best thing I have seen developed in a LONG time?!--we got her into the house. Luckily for me, and her, Genius Golfer had taken a personal day from work to paint the house yesterday otherwise I am not sure she would have made it into the house at all. She is getting taller and heavier and I am getting older and weaker, apparently. GG had to almost lift her up the stairs to get her to bed. She was wobbly and staggering like an old wino.

As she got settled into the recovery bed--mine, since it has a DVD and TV to hold her attention--she tried to ask me a question. Still having a mouth full of gauze, she motioned for a paper and pencil. I found those and gave them to her. Then she wrote a message about calling the neighbors to borrow a movie IN SPANISH. Hilarious.

Later in the day her BFF, Nicole, came over and babysat her/watched movies with her/kept her from falling off the bed. Slowly but surely she came out of the anesthesia fully and then we spent the rest of the day dealing with pudding, pain meds, and ice packs.

Still, her reaction to the anesthesia was so unexpected, I am still smiling about it when I think of her face yesterday. GG got some of that on video. And if I figure out how to load it, we'll post something here. I just hope she doesn't ever have friends who need to be entertained so badly that they give her drugs. She'd fill the entertainment request, but who knows what else she'd do!

Extraction

Today The Girl is having her wisdom teeth extracted. She seems very calm about the whole thing. That is good, because I am freaking out just a little on the inside.

I had my wisdom teeth pulled too, but I was a little older that The Girl. I was in my junior year of high school and I had all four impacted teeth pulled over Thanksgiving break. What a rotten time to do that to someone. I laid around on the couch all weekend slurping Jell-O while I could smell my mom's turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, pies, and stuffing. RUDE!

As I recall the extraction process itself went well, but the complications I encountered were of the post-op sort. I ended up with lock jaw. I can't recall anything more uncomfortable until childbirth. But, may I say, the drug used to treat the lock jaw was FANTASTIC!

I remember being given Valium. What a wonderful drug. So soothing, so peaceful. So calm, and unlocking.

Maybe with my history from wisdom teeth extraction, I could have the doctor give me some more of that, then I'd be so much more pleasant to deal with while I nurse The Girl back to health from her surgery. Yeah, that would be great.

A Biopsy and a Cabana Boy

Yesterday I had the biopsy done at St. Mark's hospital. It was an MRI guided biopsy, which means they take another set of MRI pictures and compare to what was done last week and then they use that information to correctly place the needle to extract tissue for the biopsy and lab tests.

After my very scary MRI last week, I made sure they could drug me for this one. This is why we have pharmaceutical companies. 45 minutes prior to my procedure, they gave me .5 Zanex. It didn't make me giggly but I felt VERRRRRRRY relaxed and quite callllllmmmm. It was great.

The radiologist and all her technicians were fantastic. The procedure itself took about an hour. They took another MRI picture, then one with the contrast again, then they did some calculations. Then they lidocained the side of my breast and put in a marker, which was more like a needle. Another picture so they were sure it was in the right spot, then they pulled me out of the tube and did the suctioning of tissue through the needle. Then they unhooked me from the machine and cleaned me up and patched up the boob and I was done.

The hilarious thing about this time was the very relaxed state I was in. I didn't breathe fast or have my pulse race. In fact, as I lay face down over the dangling boob cavern again, the fan from the machine blew over my feet and up over my body. In my head I talked myself into that being the ocean breeze as I was laying on the white sand beach of some South Pacific island paradise. In my drug induced state, I imagined a lovely, tanned, shirtless, cabana boy bringing me fruity drinks and making sure I was perfectly comfortable. Ahhh.

No, they did not send me home with any more of that fantastic drug. Dang it.

WHAT Was He Thinking?!?

OK, another reason to blog today from the Talk Radio Circuit: Are you ready?

The Sunday headline in Britain's News of the World tabloid was "What a Dope!" The photo? Micheal Phelps with a marijuana bong. Here you go...

From the story, last November Mr. Phelps was at a college party with friends in South Carolina and a "friend" snapped the picture of him there. Other party goers were quick to add how "out of control he was" all night, etc.

I'm not debating his abilities to swim, compete, win medals here. But I am wondering: What was he thinking?! These were his "friends" that sold this photo to Britain's big tabloid paper? How do friends do that and yet not stop and ask him "Yo, Mike. Is this really what you think you should be doing?"

I think there is something to be said here about the acceptance of drug use in society in general. There were many comments on NOTW's site about how "pot isn't that big a deal" and so on.

Don't we almost expect big time performers on the fields of professional athletics to be doping? I do. I can't see a lot of baseball or track and field atheltes the same again. But I had hoped swimmers were smarter. The Girl and I tease about it being a smart person's sport, like soccer. Maybe we are wrong.

Well, I am not sure that his endorsement sponsors will oust him from their rosters of stars. He did fess up to it after the story ran--not too big a deal, in my humble opinion, since they had already published the photographic proof. But he did release a statement that apologized for "bad judgement" and "regrettable behavior" but that kind of apology only sounds like he is bummed he got caught. I'm sure his publicist meant every word he wrote for Micheal to say.

I just kept thinking of Micheal's mom, and what she is thinking. She is a current junior high school principal. I'm sure she is thinking Micheal need to make a guest appearance at Red Ribbon Week. He might need to info more than the kids.