House saved me too
Yesterday I had my third nipple removed. After three dentists, the fourth one did the job. The first one wasn’t far off, but his 1 million lei worth of useless yellow antibiotics cream and the “manele” in his office made me look for a second opinion. The good old home town dentist, the one that’s seen all my teeth grow and taken out a bunch. I thought that he’ll be more caring and cheap, which I was right, but I never thought he’d not know what I had and simply suggested surgery. The same solution as the third doctor, who was kind enough to recommend me one with experience. When I went to see this plactic surgeon he explained that I was being too brutal with my toothbrush while I wash and my gums had enough so they reacted by creating the third nipple, little thing, minor intervention not more that half an hour’s work. I’ll be describing how it went so if you can’t stand blood skip to the next paragraph. He was right about the 30 minutes. First he asked about health problems, none than the obvious one, thank God. Ok, so we’re ready to go, 5 shots of anesthetic in my mouth which hurt, and I quote the doctor “I didn’t bother asking if it hurts, I already know that, the struggling in the chair said you’re no exception”. Great. It did their job right, my nose and upper lip both went to sleep. Time for some action. Since I had my eyes opened I saw the sharp blade and the pieces of cotton soaked in blood, I felt drops of blood on my tongue and lower lip and of course the needle and the straw were going up and down, up and down, up and down. Oh wait, this can’t be this easy. Doctor: “right now you have to choose. Either you let me punch the needle twice in the back here, or you want anesthetic first”. Well, why prolong this, which already seemed like eternity, so “go ahead doctor!” True that it didn’t hurt more than the shots, it was the feeling of the straw moving trough my gums that freaked me out. Just when I was getting used to being sewed, the whole work was finished and it was time for me to see how it looked like now. Horrible. I was unable to speak. I made an enormous effort not to cry. The full recovery will be in the course of three weeks, in 7 days I get my stitches removed. The way it looks now makes me think I shouldn’t have done the surgery in the first place, if the gums don’t grow back this will be the greatest mistake of my life. It will drive me nuts, my phobia of wound marks, especially visible ON MY FACE marks, is sure to make me have a chronic depression that will affect my whole well being. And I’m not kidding.
This is where dr. House comes in the story. Dale Carnegie, the author (among other distinctions) once wrote in his wonderful book “How to win friends and influence people” that one’s toothache is greater than the hunger in Africa. Human I am, third nipple operation devastating. So, late last night, after crying until the anesthetic effect passed away and made crying hurtful because it was stretching the recently cut gum section, I came across dr. House episodes on a streaming channel. I watched it briefly on TV before, but the scientific explanations and use of medical, biological and chemical language didn’t make it that interesting. As I selected the pilot episode to play, Roxi’s words came to mind (Roxi aka lifesoundtrack in the comments and her two blogs in my blogroll, one consisting of medical stuff since she’s studying medicine *proud of you*) about this show meaning that the co-writer is the daughter of the most famous doctor in USA and that the cases, the pills, the tests, they’re all real (as in they’re true life scenarios). Half way through the first season dr. House made me forget about my surgery, made me not justified to complain about it , made me trust experienced doctors and made me understand that the human body is an amazing thing that it can grow back it’s gums in no time. I believe no other show could have made me feel better. Scrubs and Grey’s Anatomy only use the hospital as simple set to create and analyze human relations, very little medical reference. Thank you, dr. House!
