Wisdom Teeth Gone; And We're All A Little Wiser
Monkey had her wisdom teeth out on Monday. She’s doing fine, and has handled the pain and discomfort well.
She did remind me a fair amount of Jacob Marley’s ghost from my favorite adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” for the first few days.
And now for the rest of the story.
We used the oral surgeon recommended by our new dentist. The new dentist was selected due to new insurance, and we have all been very happy with them. They are a better fit for our family than our old dentist, and for that I’m grateful.
Because of this big golden halo of comfort with the new dentist, I extended my trust in them to the oral surgeon recommendation, which is not a mistake I will make again.
Monkey made it very clear that she wanted to be asleep during the surgery. I shared that preference with the oral surgeon’s office when we set up the appointment.
Then, Monkey did research (as she does) to confirm what she had read about red heads reacting differently to anesthesia than the general populace. There is a correlation between the genes for being red-headed and how the body handles the anesthetic. In general, more is needed to achieve the same effect.
Monkey shared this with the tech who prepped us for the surgeon. There was an initial reaction of, “Oh, look at how cute this little person is with her big words and her research. We’ve heard that old wives’ tale over the years.”
We loath that reaction whenever we encounter it, which has been too frequently over the years, and so I attempted to clarify by saying, “No, she’s telling you that it’s correlated. The data proves it. So, what’s the plan if there’s an issue with her waking up?”
The tech told us what the plan was. It sounded like there was a plan.
I’m still so angry I won’t go into all the details, but suffice it to say that Monkey’s first typed words to me, since she couldn’t talk were, “I was awake!”
My main goal was to get her home, settled, and comfortable as quickly as possible, but my heart still pounds with fury when I think of how this was handled and my initial shock that I wasn’t able to protect her.
She didn’t have constant pain. There were only twinges during the procedure, but as my letter to the oral surgeon will state, “You took a procedure we expected to be difficult and painful and instead made it difficult, painful, and traumatic.”
Monkey will be fine. Is fine. She won’t let one person’s inept, unempathetic actions throw her off course.
And we’ll continue to watch out for medical partners who don’t want to actually be partners, but dictators. They don’t have a place with our family.
