diello | Aug. 3rd, 2011

For reference, or further tales of fright, read my other post, Surgery #1: The Bone Graft (I'm not going to time-stamp anything this time, because I spent 5 hours in there from 8:30am to 1:30pm). Before I begin, I'd like to thank

mooncalfe for staying up all night with me (without which I wouldn't be too tired to wile away the night in terrified anticipation), keeping my mind off the whole ordeal, and taking home those vegan cupcakes I wouldn't be able to eat anyway <3<3<3

I knew what to expect this time, and that scared the crap out of me. They told me it'd be the same procedure, except instead of grinding my bone smooth to make way for a few scoops of cadaver bone dust, they'd be drilling a big hole up in my face. The part just like the previous one? Slicing my gum, and scraping it (I mean SCRAPING it) away from the bone.

Preparations included downing 4 Amoxicillin, taking a full set of X-rays, and one spot-focused X-ray on the point of entry with the surrounding teeth. I read for a while in the chair while waiting for the photos to develop and for the nurses to prepare all the equipment they needed. Then it really begun.

Shots in the front of the mouth always hurt the most, and I had to have about 5 or so at the beginning (multiply this by 11 and that's how much freeze it actually took throughout the procedure to keep me numb). I listened to all the nurses lie to me, trying to keep me calm, failing at it. But I tried those deep-breathing exercises anyway. I was shaking, and being so cold didn't help either. I wore a heavy lead bib the whole time because they had to take progress X-rays throughout, and I gladly wore it, because not even my padded bra could hide how cold I felt.

Then they threw me backward on the chair. Slicing and scraping. In tears, trying so hard not to shake, with the scalpel already making its way through my gum-line, and the nurse kept telling me I have to calm down or they'll have to reschedule, and I'm thinking, are they really going to stitch me up and reschedule? The blade's already in! My mouth is filling with blood as we speak, and you're telling me to keep calm instead of suctioning out the blood? Somehow, about halfway through the scraping, I'd calmed down, realizing I really couldn't FEEL it, and most assuredly wouldn't in such a small time frame since my last freeze.

After they fully exposed the bone, we waited for the head doctor. The head doctor looks just like Mark McKinney from Kids in the Hall, with a thick German accent. This was the only pleasing part of him, in my opinion. He was always running around checking on a billion other patients, so every time we had to wait for him, they had to numb me up again because it took so long to find him. And thusly, he was always rushing the little things, so at one point, I had to yell in pain because he was using my cheekbone as an anchor-point for his working hand, and another point, he accidentally leaned on my hair, he also leaned his hand against my lower lip and pinched it on my teeth (this, though, happens with just about all the dentists I've had). And oh, at one point, he tried to swap out too much equipment at one time with my other doctor, over my head, resulting in a suction tube smacked right in my face (right on the eyebrow- thank goodness I still had my glasses on). Come on, really?

So he made his checks, removed the pins in there from before (pins? I don't remember pins! Perhaps that's why there was a hammer last time), then began to drill. This drill looked just like any dental drill (if you've ever had a cavity filled, you'll know) only this one towered a whole inch (maybe more) and was roughly 15 or 20mm thick! The drilling felt like a jackhammer inside my skull, vibrating my brains into a froth. I wanted it to be over. He put so much pressure on that drill, I thought something would crack for sure. It wound up being that calmness I'd maintained til now, and though it didn't hurt, my breaths became quick, sharp things, and I whimpered every time I feared all my teeth breaking under the pressure given by the drill.

Still drilling.

I've finally accepted the fact that I'd continue to be numb and wouldn't feel the drill at any point, and nor would the rest of my skull shatter under the pressure, so here, I've finally calmed down.

More drilling.

Yay! No more drilling! Wait, they're sticking a long pin in the hole. Smile for the X-ray! Click! And I'm left alone... with a pin... sticking out of my face (let me know if anyone wants to see this- I was left alone so long I got bored and took a picture, but I'm not going to post it here).

When someone came back, I asked if I could pee and surprisingly (and thankfully, as I had a LONG way to go), they did. I came back and asked for more freeze, and they obliged, but only when they found the head doctor and knew he was on his way, so I would be freshly numb when he started...

Drilling again. Took as long as the last time, but this time, HOORAY! He finished! But oh, I had to wait again for them to hunt down the right sized screw to stick in the hole. While we waited, the doctor stuck what I can only describe as a corkscrew into my face, to make the grooves the screw would be following. Well, if the drill didn't crack my skull wide open, I was certain this wouldn't either, even though (believe it or not) the pressure from this little hand-cranked device made the drill seem like a sponge jamming into my mouth.

By the time they finally found the right implant, my freeze was beginning to wear off (already?) and I could feel them shove the thing into the hole. They put more powdered cadaver bone around the implant, and then I began crying over the soreness. I asked for more freeze pleeze, but they couldn't do it, or else the bone particles would wash away, so I had to wait until AFTER they stitched me up. Then I got one more set of shots to see me home (or rather, to see me to the pharmacy to get my medicine and pick up my week's worth of liquid diet, then home).

Took a dose of pills, stuck an icepack to my face, and watched Buck Rogers and True Blood til I fell asleep.

Generally speaking, I really don't mind the emptiness from where my tooth was extracted from my grin. Not usually. That's why I've gone a good 6 or 7 years without fixing it. That and money was tight, of course. I go along day by day, not really remembering I have this big hole in my face, because most people don't flat-out point it out, and they often go out of their way to keep from looking at it. I never noticed I didn't have a tooth there (stay with me, here). I didn't ever think about it. Not until someone takes a picture, or if I catch someone unable to take their eyes off my mouth while I'm talking to them.

Everyone hates SOMETHING about themselves. Whether their ears stick out, their roots are showing, they wear glasses, their boobs sag, they're pigeon-toed, they have bad teeth, they are allergic to something delicious, they have a big scar, or whatever! It doesn't even have to be a physical thing- I hate the way I can't be happy without a good night's sleep, I hate that I always mess up when I only have the best intentions, I hate that I am lazy, I hate the way I was raised to believe I would never be loved, I hate that I keep telling myself I'll draw every day and fill up my sketchbooks but the first thing I draw discourages me so much I don't pick up my sketchbook for months and months.

The one thing I loved so much, though? Among all these hideous parts of me, the one thing I thought was truly beautiful about me was my smile. I thought getting the run-around all these years, doctors too busy to set aside time to talk about my options, never having gotten a promised allotment of insurance, and always having to use the money for something else... I thought I deserved to have that taken away. BUT I ENDURED. I felt shitty for a little while, and I got over it. I went this whole time not caring what people thought of me, but when I noticed them notice, I suddenly did. When I noticed they took my pictures, I suddenly hated myself all over again. And that feeling stuck the rest of the day.

Let me illustrate my point.

I grew up in a place where lots of people had bad teeth (and even though they only lived one county away, they somehow have an outrageous hick accent!). So when I notice people looking at the gap in my teeth, I feel like they're seeing this:

And then I feel like this:

Whenever I see someone take my photo and I'm in a particularly good mood, I either turn to my left to let my teeth shine, or I closed-mouth Mona Lisa smile, which I really hate. I dare you to find a recent picture of me where I am grinning big and proud! Posed pictures don't count.

But the worst thing in the world is when my older sister Brooke, the one sibling I looked up to my whole life, kicked me out of her wedding because, and she actually said this, she didn't want my ugly smile to ruin her photographs.