{"id":1348,"date":"2010-05-29T01:41:56","date_gmt":"2010-05-29T08:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/main\/?p=1348"},"modified":"2013-02-23T03:32:45","modified_gmt":"2013-02-23T03:32:45","slug":"still-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/2010\/05\/29\/still-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Still alive&#8230;."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This isn&#8217;t really news, since everyone who matters has spoken to me since my last update, but&#8230;I survived.  It wasn&#8217;t fun, and the incredible clusterfuck surrounding it all made it even less fun.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s start at the beginning&#8230;.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nAbout a month ago, got everything all set up to go see an oral surgeon.  We had a chat over the phone about sedation options, and she had prescriptions sent out.  I got the appointment letter in the mail, and stuck it to the white board.  I start preparing as best I can, because I&#8217;m not entirely sure they&#8217;ll even complete the process.  See, it&#8217;s through the VA, and Dental&#8217;s only for 100% people, and they were considering me for a reduction.  The DAV were trying to keep me there, but, well, I knew how well that went last time, so I was kinda figuring on everything going wrong.<\/p>\n<p>But, things changed.  And then&#8230;things changed.<\/p>\n<p>The oral surgeon called me last Friday, telling me that&#8230;something had happened.  She couldn&#8217;t do it Thursday, because of&#8230;something.  And she wouldn&#8217;t be in the office past 3:30.  It was 3:20.  And my phone was going out of the service area by&#8230;I don&#8217;t know&#8230;shifting dimensions when unobserved for fractions of fractions of seconds, or something.  That&#8217;s fine, though, because I was getting a new phone, which is a whole &#8216;nother story.<\/p>\n<p>Saturday, and the oral surgeon calls me back.  By some lucky coincidence my phone works <i>and<\/i> I answer it, even though the number is unfamiliar and strangely Californian.  She wants to know if I can do it on Monday.  <i>Monday<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>We try to figure out if we can.  Eventually, we get it all worked out.  We can do it Monday, we&#8217;ll just have to ride the bus there, which will be a lot like hell, because that makes Sunday Extra Special Mogwai day&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Y&#8217;know, no eating after midnight.  No water.  All that sheer hell.<\/p>\n<p>Also?  I hadn&#8217;t finished my food list.  A minor complaint, sure, but still depressing.<\/p>\n<p>In case you&#8217;re curious, it was a list of foods I wanted to eat one last time, since I didn&#8217;t know when I was going to be able to eat again.  It consisted of such simple pleasures as good pizza, broccoli beef, crab rangoon, eggrolls, spicy surimi, a sub from Subway with chips in it.  A short list, but&#8230;I kinda missed out on the chinese.  I did, however, get chicken tenders, and, because &#8216;what the hell&#8217;, some corn on the cob.  I&#8217;d been avoiding that for years because I&#8217;d been worried about whether or not I could do it without making myself look like a toothless hick.<\/p>\n<p>Too late for that now.<\/p>\n<p>So, yeah.  I get as much of that crammed into Saturday and Sunday as I can.  I get a case of chocolate Boost and a big pack of pudding cups, get the comfiest [and most easily shed] clothes I can find, and I&#8217;m all ready for Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what I remember of Monday:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Waking up at 4:30 because Gremlin was sick of waiting.\n<li>Sitting at McDonalds because it was too early for the bus, wishing I could eat something.\n<li>Getting on the bus.\n<li>Getting on the LightRail, and sitting in the stepwell because it was so crowded.\n<li>Getting to the VA Hospital around a half hour early, and checking in, expecting them to not have my appointment listed because it was made on Saturday.\n<li>Meeting the oral surgeon, who turns out to not be twelve feet tall and made entirely of dental drills and rusty wire.\n<li>Signing the &#8216;This could kill you&#8217; release form.\n<li>Learning that I probably shouldn&#8217;t have worn a camisole under my shirt for comfort because it made the heart monitoring sticky pads slightly more annoying to place.\n<li>Getting the IV.\n<li>The really awesome computer-box thingie where they apparently keep the good drugs.\n<li>They strapped my arms to the chair, and called them &#8216;gentle reminders,&#8217; because, apparently, people like to try and help.\n<li>The phrase, &#8220;This isn&#8217;t what&#8217;ll put you out.  It&#8217;ll just make you itch.&#8221;\n<li>Holy crap, she meant it.  Who, exactly, came up with this drug, and why did they just decide to punish me?  Seriously.  Whatever it was, it felt like a billion tiny stars achieved fusion in my crotch, and brought STDs with them.\n<\/ul>\n<p>And then, nothing.  I remember some awful grindey-filey noises, and some brief pain, and someone saying, &#8220;We&#8217;re almost done,&#8221; but&#8230;nothing until they stuffed my face with gauze and helped me into a wheelchair.  Fortunately, the firey crotch of doom went away while I was out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;then, car and home.  I didn&#8217;t bleed all over the car, which is probably a good thing because it wasn&#8217;t ours.  I did bleed all over the front step, and possibly on my super-comfy-flannel.<\/p>\n<p>More fuzziness, until the new phones arrived.  I managed to activate the phone in my drugged up haze, which says something about Verizon&#8217;s activation process.  It&#8217;s a Motorola Droid, and, so far, I don&#8217;t hate it.  I can even post here from it [I think].<\/p>\n<p>By Tuesday, I was sick of chocolate.  So, we went out.  I had egg drop soup, and teeny, tiny bites of mongolian beef.  And it was the most wonderfully wonderful thing I&#8217;d ever tasted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and, on Wednesday, I learned why you don&#8217;t go out for strolls the day after oral surgery.  Also, I learned that the VA still thought I was going to be coming in on Thursday to have all my teeth extracted.<\/p>\n<p>I also learned that I&#8217;m a very lucky person, or something.  Gremlin surprised me with the giant plush Ebola from the Giant Microbes store.  It&#8217;s seriously adorable, and I think I&#8217;m glad things didn&#8217;t go as planned.  I might&#8217;ve bled all over it, otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>I still don&#8217;t know what the next step is, or when it&#8217;s going to happen.  Right now, I&#8217;m not sure I care, but that could be a combination of tiredness and vicodin talking.<\/p>\n<p>If that last line doesn&#8217;t explain this post, nothing will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This isn&#8217;t really news, since everyone who matters has spoken to me since my last update, but&#8230;I survived. It wasn&#8217;t fun, and the incredible clusterfuck surrounding it all made it even less fun. Let&#8217;s start at the beginning&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[95],"class_list":["post-1348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bib","tag-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3bMfN-lK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1684,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions\/1684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coffeechick.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}