Taking Turns Being on the Mend: David's Wisdom Teeth Extraction

My CAT scan results turned up no problems with my insides -- everything looked normal, or, as medical reports like to note, "unremarkable" -- which seems an unnecessarily pessimistic term to use -- I mean, can't they just say that my liver size was "normal," as opposed to "unremarkable"? I beg to differ that my liver is "unremarkable" -- it's gone through some pretty heavy partying over the years and still looks good. Anyway, so after all the testing, my gastro- doctor concluded that I must have some sort of virus and that the pains were caused by viral spasms. And now, a few days later, I feel much better. Not much tenderness, no more spasms, I feel good as new.

Now, it's David's turn to be a "patient" of a sort. He had all 4 of his wisdom teeth taken out surgically yesterday. It was a big procedure, since one was impacted, another was turned towards another tooth, one had a cavity... I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth pulled at once when I was 20 years old, and this was an almost barbarically simple procedure and a kind of anti-climactic experience, as tales of wisdom teeth pulling go: I had novocaine injections locally, and the dentist proceeded to pull out one tooth at a time -- or almost wrenched out one at a time -- and I could hear the crunching and feel the pulling, but it didn't hurt. I recovered quickly, ate everything just fine afterwards, and flew to Scotland for the summer.

(David after the teeth extraction -- photo taken with my mobile phone, in the "recovery room")

David's wisdom teeth extraction experience was more complicated. He had an intravenous sedation, which knocks you out, basically. He had a proper surgeon, whom I met, too -- he was nice, friendly, thorough and professional. While David had his operation, I waited in the "recovery room" next door -- which is basically a tiny room with a bed for the patient to rest on after the operation. The procedure was surprisingly quick. David was in and out in 30 minutes. He came out of the operation very happily trippy on the drugs he'd been given, and excitedly repeated, over and over, "That was fun! I want to do it again!" -- until he fell fast asleep for about 30 minutes.


After a thorough explanation of David's care and a few prescriptions for pain, we went home. David slept much of the remainder of the day, and I made him a big batch of broccoli soup. He was in too much raw pain to eat yesterday, but he's much better today, he can eat, very slowly and gingerly. For the next few days, it will be soft foods, rinsing with salt water, taking anti-biotics (which he hates to do -- this is my most difficult task, to get him to finish the required prescription amount).

We are relieved that the operation went smoothly, with no problems with hitting nerve endings or anything like that, about which we were concerned beforehand. Now it's making sure the four corners of his mouth heal properly.

Perilous Adventures in Abdominal Pains

Last Friday, early morning, I woke up with severe abdominal pains -- something along the lines of aggressive cramps that wouldn't go away. It kept on into the afternoon, so David took me to the emergency room... which lead to blood tests, IV drips, and an ultrasound conducted by a mustachio-ed man with an accent. 8 hours later, at midnight, I was discharged, with no conclusive understanding of what was wrong with me, and still in pain. No fever, no vomiting, just terrible abdominal pains.

The pain kept on over the weekend, on and off, in a strange fashion, because I didn't "feel" sick, but then I would be accosted with awful abdominal pains. I've had cramping before, but this was above the belly button, which made it odd. I couldn't eat much, although I was hungry, because putting food in my stomach seemed to irritate it. On Monday, I ended up seeing a gastro- doctor, who was very nice. He signed me up to get a CAT scan, to do a thorough check on my insides.

Today was my CAT scan. I had confused it with my previous experiences with an MRI. I have never had a CAT scan, and this one was for images with contrast. I arrived at the medical offices thinking that, by "with contrast," it simply meant I would have photos of my insides taken with a more, say, textured, 3-dimensional, chiaroscuro black and white quality.

I was gravely mistaken, and only found out my misunderstanding as I found myself signing off to injections and their possible side effects. (One of which was "On rare occasions, death may be a risk.")

A CAT scan with contrast apparently involves you drinking about a 1.5 liter bottle of white cranberry juice with iodine and something else (?) in it in 30 minutes, from which you wait 90 minutes, then getting an IV to have more iodine injections, and finally lying down on the CAT scanning machine, your arms up, with tube running from yet another machine injecting more stuff.

The thing is, I am not a fruit juice person. And certainly not a fruit juice from concentrate person. Yes, I know, I am a foodist snob. But I shall say it -- I don't think this 1.5 liters of white cranberry juice came freshly squeezed, and, dare I say it, I do not think those cranberries were organic. I think the last time I had cranberry juice was in a Cosmopolitan. I have not drank so much crappy sugar-laden drink in... like, maybe even ever. I mean, this is New York City, can't they do better than this nasty stuff for people who actually care about what they put in their bodies? I was completely sugar high as a result of this liquid concoction.

After consuming this 1.5 liters of concentrated grossness, buzzing off bad sugar, I was taken to see a rotund Asian lady who squeezed my arm in search of a good vein. Despite my protests that perhaps she could puncture my right arm -- my left arm becoming a pin-cushion of late, what with blood tests and IV at the ER and then more blood tests with the gastro doctor -- the lady tapped at a vein mound just above my wrist, said, "Ah, that's a good one" as if she were selecting a live lobster out of an aquarium to eat, and then jabbed it with the needle. The final injection whilst one lies on the CAT scan machine has the effect of making you really warm and funny-feeling, almost trippy. With the sugar rushing through me and iodine and whatever else injected into me as I lay on a funny looking machine, I felt like some alien abductee.

Anyway -- so it went -- I had my first CAT scan with contrast today. Results are not in, but it appears I do not have appendicitis, which is good. And I am feeling better than I have since Friday today, and am able to eat without having stomach aches.

David is off to Toronto tonight, where he will be doing preliminary dance auditions for the Toronto re-cast through Friday. I plan to have a mellow few days, mostly at home, chilling out, catching up on some emailing, watching TV, eating take-away or something along those lines with a glass of wine, but I will definitely not drink any cranberry juice in the near future, even if it came in a Cosmopolitan.