Surgery
This morning, we went right down the line and took out three tricky teeth on a very nice fellow who didn’t speak English. Mykala picked me up for lunch (we’ve been lunching together a lot lately) and I shared a miniature revelation.
“I think I know why most surgeons have big egos.”
“Why’s that?”
“There’s some sort of thrill when you stitch tissue back together. Something in the limbic system or whatever yells up from the depths ‘You put it back together!’ And things build from there. I can only imagine what happens when you’re a surgeon who actually saves lives: ‘I am the reason that person is walking around, can hug their grandchild, lives to exist another day.’”
Back at school for the afternoon, there was no time for such philosophizing. At the end of the afternoon, 15 minutes before we were scheduled to be done, I ended up extracting a tricky upper molar on a lady in a lot of pain. Or, well, attempting to extract. I had good mobility on the tooth, was making good progress, but I was out of time. The attending stepped in.
Crrrrrack.
Crown’s gone. I didn’t even see the releasing incision that came after that.
Fffffzzzzz zzzzzzzz!
The Hall drill sounds exactly like a pneumatic drill that your car mechanic uses because… it’s a pneumatic drill like your car mechanic’s. Anyhow, there goes buccal bone.
Pop.
Out come the roots.
“That was fast!” said the patient. “Well, that’s what you get when the experts step in,” I said. I went home appropriately humbled.
There’s a sharp division between school and home. The minute I got home, all of this swirling in my head, it just went away. It was like getting a big hug warm after being out in the cold. Mykala had made delicious fresh Mexican (seriously, fresh guacamole, fresh tortillas). Now, I’m sitting here on our couch, finally cleaning out my inbox, talking with Mykala about her future as a double Master’s holder in Human Development and Licensed Professional Counselor slash Well Coach slash general boon to humanity. We’re watching The Holiday. It’s going to snow tomorrow.
Seriously, how awesome are Jude Law’s glasses in that movie?
Comments
John
That crack is the most annoying sound when I have to extract teeth. But things get easier, with time and patience. Probably the most annoying thing to me right now is unerupted adult premolars. I guess they are also called embedded teeth. I hate… hate those…
Alexander Micek
Seriously! They actually don’t even let undergrads take out premolars in preparation for braces anymore… probably because it’s hard to get them out in a, well, gentle way.