Well the day hasn't been as good as I was hoping but it's finished with now.
The A&E department of the dental hospital opens at 9am and the morning session is on until 1pm. The afternoon sessions starts at 1.30pm and finishes at 5pm. So after a night of very little sleep and waking up in agony due to the lack of pain killers me and my mother arrived at 9.15am.
"Hi, I need to see a dentist please," I said to the very smiley receptionist.
"Do you have an appointment?" she asked.
"No, I didn't realise I needed one, I thought I could just walk in."
"Oh you can," she said, "it's just that we're very busy and all the slots for our morning session have been taken up. I can give you a ticket and you can return at 1.30pm but other than that I'm afraid there is nothing I can do." She was actually very nice about it.
So I took the ticket and me and mom walked back to the car. She decided she couldn't spend four hours walking round Birmingham so wanted to go home and we'd come back. I insisted I could do it but she really didn't want to so we got in the car and headed home.
The pain felt like it was getting progressively worse although I knew it wasn't, it was just my mind playing tricks on me because I'd had no pain killers and was about to go through something that I personally find extremely worrying.
Now Bert will tell you what I'm like for time keeping. If we have to be somewhere at 7pm then I'm happy to get there at 6.30pm and read for thirty minutes while waiting. I've got into the habit of lying to Bert and adding half and hour on if we have to be somewhere because if he arranges something for 7pm he thinks that means we leave the house at 7pm... ergo we're late! I hadn't really noticed the time when mother said "come on, we'd better get going if we don't want to be late!"
As we took our seats in the waiting room I looked up at the clock in the corner of the BBC News screen. It was 12.00.
"Mother!" I exclaimed.
"What?" she said incredulous.
"It's twelve o'clock! We're an hour and half early!"
"Well look, we've got a seat and you'll be seen first."
"No I won't! I've got ticket number twenty! I'll be seen twentieth no matter what happens!"
"Really? Oh well."
Now I know where I get it from.
Around 1pm two men came in and sat next to us. They stank. Now the seating wasn't great so unless you had an aisle seat (like mother) you had to share both the seat arms with the person either side of you. For me that was namely my mother and smelly tramp number one. Mother gave up her side but the tramp made sure he had all of it and stuck his elbow in my ribs every few minutes. I'm sure at one point he had his hands in my coat pockets.
"Look," he said to his mate and pointing to the TV, "it's one o'clock."
"You'll be seen soon," said his mate.
"Nah, it'll be about 3ish before I'm seen."
"Nah, you'll be seen about one forty-five"
"It's one minute past now."
He announced every minute apart from those between 1.11 and 1.21 because during that time he went for a pee and a smoke. How do I know? Because he announced it to all of us in the waiting. "It's one twenty-two. I've just been for a piddle (pronounced "pidd-ull") and a smoke."
As he sits back down an elderly lady comes up to his mate. Her aroma was just as bad as theirs.
"What num-ba ya got?" she asked sternly.
"I ain't got a num-ba!" he shouted at her.
"What num-ba ya got?" she asked tramp number one.
"I ain't got a num-ba, I got a pappointment so I don't need a num-ba!"
"What num-ba ya got?" she said to me.
"Twenty," I said trying not to breath in her aroma or look at her very full beard.
"Wanna swap?" she shouted.
"What?" I said, having not really heard her.
"Gimme me y' ticket un yow can ave my un!"
"No sorry."
"It's one thirty-one now!" says tramp number two.
"Go on, swap with me!" says the old woman.
"No."
"What num-ba ya got?" she hollered at my mother.
"I am here with my son!" she said in the poshest voice she could muster.
The old dear moved on to everyone and never managed to swap.
"It's one thirty-two now!"
This carried on until finally at one fifty-five he was seen!
At 2.30pm it was my turn! The horror of hearing my name called over the tannoy is a memory that will remain with me forever. I couldn't actually move and in the end the dentist came out of her little room and called my name again. I just looked at her and thought I was going to cry or shit myself. In the end smiled, farted and finally got up.
I gave her all my details, why I was there and after a quick chat as to why I hadn't been to my own dentist when I lied and told her I'd tried but had to wait six weeks for an appointment and was flying off on holiday tomorrow she finally put the chair back and looked in the my mouth.
"Good Lord!" she said.
"Ott?" I said. It should have been 'what' but I still had a mirror in my mouth.
"Well you'll need to go for an x-ray and I think we'll stick a temporary filling in there and get you back in here to have that tooth out!"
"I'm going away tomorrow!"
"For how long?"
"For good!"
"Oh, well ... er ... okay let's get the x-ray done and we'll see where we go from here."
So off to x-ray and ten minutes later back in the chair. I felt like I should have been asking for my final meal. She looked at my x-ray and sucked air through her teeth like a mechanic stood in front of someone who knows nothing about cars. "I'm just going to get a colleague," she said and off she went.
When I saw the man that she called colleague I thought she was going to pick him up, give him a tiny pick axe an pop in my mouth to do all the work for me. He was tiny. I don't mean he was a midget or dwarf or whatever the pc term is... I mean he was tiny. It was like being seen by a four year old!
"Okay we've got good news and bad news," he says while getting on a step ladder so he's eye level with me.
"Great!" I said, "give me the good news."
"I've spoken to the guys upstairs and we can do the work this afternoon. You'll be out by five."
"And the bad news?"
"It's two teeth not one."
"What's two teeth?"
"It's two teeth that need to come out."
"Well I know that. I told her that when I first saw her!"
"Oh."
"So really all you had was just news!"
"Yes. Okay, take this," he said handing a big yellow card, "and go upstairs to the second floor."
The second floor had a very ominous feel about it. It was like they were trying to make people nervous. Stepping out of the lift onto the highly polished 1960's floor tiles even my runners clacked like my mothers six inch stilettos as we headed to reception.
"Got a card love?" said the reception so I handed her the yellow one the dentist had given me. "Oh! A yellow one. Down the corridor, first door on the left, someone will be out to you soon."
Where I sat felt like it was an old smoking room. The air condition made an awful noise and the posters on the walls were old and yellowing. One of them had a phone number on and the dialling code was 021. Birmingham's dialling code hasn't 021 since April 1995!
I was busy looking at all the other posters when the dental surgeon walked in. After a shake of hands she started to tell me what she was going to.
"You're shaking," she said, "are you okay?"
"Well it's probably best you don't tell me anymore. Just do what you need to!"
"I take it your nervous?"
"Nervous?! Ha! Nervous would be simple. I'm petrified!"
"I'll go easy."
"You could tell me it's going to be like eating marshmellows and sleeping soundly and I'd still be shaking!"
"Follow me."
I sat down in the chair. Got up. Sat down again. Got up and looked out the window. Sat down again. Wiped away some tears and then jumped out the chair and began clinging to the window frame when she dumped the tray of utensils down by the chair.
"Are you going to sit down?"
"Do I have to open my mouth?"
"Yes!"
"Then no, I'm not going to sit down!"
Obviously I did in the end. I can't let these things beat me.
"Right, before I start I need to tell you something. The wisdom tooth that is coming out is dangerously close to a nerve in your jaw that supplies your bottom lip with feeling. Now you're going to get some loss of feeling in your bottom lip due to the bruising. This could last for a couple of months. It'll come back when all the bruising and swelling has gone."
"Okay, that's fine," I said.
"Well the problem is that sometimes the loss of feeling is permanent. It's rare but it happens and I have to let you know."
"I'd happily lose the feeling in my bottom lip if it meant I didn't have this kind of pain!"
"So you're happy to proceed?"
"Christ yes!"
After four injections of anaesthetic my mouth was numb and she'd got her fist in my mouth and was tugging for all it was worth but nothing was moving!
"Martin," she shouted across the room, "could you give me a hand please?"
"Do you need him to hold me down while you stand on my chest and use a crowbar?" I said.
"No," she laughed, "it's just a bit tough so I'm hoping he'll get it out."
Martin came over and tugged. And tugged some more. And nothing happened. He looked at the x-ray.
"See that," he said to the other dentist pointing at something on the x-ray, "the root has joined at the base. It's going to take force to pull it out but it's going to need more anaesthetic. He then turned to me.
"I need you to listen very carefully to what I'm going to say. We can't carry on without either having your explicit permission and signature or giving you a general anaesthetic and taking you into theatre. The roots at the base of one tooth have joined. There isn't much of a gap between them but there is some and there is still some flesh between it. So I can either give you some more local anaesthetic and pull the tooth out with force or we can give you a strong pain killer now and get you into theatre on Monday morning with a general anaesthetic and take it out piece by piece."
"Take it out now."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," I said with tears welling up.
I had another (now my fifth) injection of anaesthetic and five minutes later he was back. There was no pain by now but I could feel him tugging and pulling and feel the tooth wobble and then I heard the rip and tasted the blood. The dental nurse wiped my tears away and called me a brave boy, bless her. I told her to get me a bag so I could vomit. I didn't vomit but the thought was there.
"I'll give you five minutes to compose yourself then we'll see about the second one," he said as he walked off.
I lay in the chair absolutely sure I was going to blackout. "Are you okay?" asked the nurse.
"Not really."
"No, you don't look it. You look a bit pale! Do you know your blood type?"
"I'm petrified! ... hang on... my blood type! Yes, why?"
"Well if you're losing a lot of blood you could go into shock. It might be useful if we call the blood bank and get a unit or two ready! Martin I think we need bloods!" she shouted to him.
"Okay can you take a sample and get him matched for two units."
"He knows his type."
"Is he sure?"
"Are you sure?" she asks.
"Yes very!" I say.
"Yes very" she says.
"Okay order 2 units and get 1 unit of O on standby."
"What are you?" she asked.
"A negative," I said.
"Sure?"
"Yes."
"Very?"
"100%!"
"Everyone should know. It's very useful."
"What's yours?" I asked.
"I don't know!" There was a pause then she added, "you're doing very well. Don't worry, all be over soon."
The male dentist, Martin, returned and started to work on the other tooth. I think it was my wailing that made him stop. I heard a woman in the next stall say "that sounded painful" and she wasn't wrong!
"You need more anaesthetic?"
"Well the pain then was immense!" I said.
I had my sixth injection and he started again. I heard the ting of metal on metal and his dropped his pliers and I was amazed at how easy the second one had come out.
"Okay, the second tooth is split in half. No wonder you were in agony. Only one root is attached and that came off as I took the tooth out. The actual tooth is out but both roots are still in. To get them out I need to cut into your gums. I need you to stay very still."
As he came towards me with a small scalpel my mouth closed and I sat up. After some calming words from him and the nurse my mouth was open and my head was being held my another dentist. The nurse was replaced by a third dentist. All of the stood of me, looking into my mouth talking about the tooth. I closed my eyes and tried to go to my happy place but it was no good, all I can feel with the slicing of the knife then the pulling of the root.
"Okay, we're nearly done, just a couple of stitches."
At 5.10pm I was told it was all over. Six injections, two teeth removed, nine stitches and one big fat crying man.
Now, come 10.30pm, the pain is there but it's nothing like the pain I was in. I can constantly taste blood no matter what I drink and every now and then I feel the edge of one of the stitches.
I rang Brad and all I could think of was being desperate for a hug from him and rather than tell him I was okay and glad it was over I burst into tears.
It's done with now but next time I'll go for the full general anaesthetic and visit in my hospital bed from all my friends. You hear me... ALL my friends... ALL of you! I like seedless grapes and FHM.
