An update.
I have had a little time now to process the events of yesterday, which were somewhat shocking to me, and would like to tell you the latest update. Two weeks ago, my first disappointing experience, at the regular clinic, wherein my eyes leaked, much to my embarrassment, a first for me. As overcome as I was, I could recognize the young male student was getting a shit day too, dealing with me.
He, and the prof, arranged the visit to the surgical clinic, and we left, but I was still too undone to really thank him or apologize. So when I returned for that surgical clinic appointment, I brought a small box of homemade brownies, and left them with a note thanking him for his kindness.
So, it turns out, later in his day, he made his way over to the surgical clinic to check how I’d done and thank me. Only to discover that I had bolted, when told, they too were going to do the same old, same old, no additional sedation. I wept in the hall, we left.
I spent a lot of time in the afternoon searching out sedation places I could get into, not great news, very stressful and my nerves were still raw. (On reflection I think I may have hit that tipping point from, ‘scared to death’, to actual phobia. When I hit that hall, it was the complete loss, of control of my emotions, that startled me and frightened me too, a little. It is not who I am. I have faced many moments of far greater gravitas than this, that did not cause such a breakdown.)
Later that evening, my phone rings and it’s this young student, and he’s calling to thank me for the brownies, and he apologizes for not preparing me better etc. I know he feels bad. I tell him not to, that I’ll figure something out, etc. After a short time he starts to say he wants to give me a phone number to go for a consultation with, not the dental school clinics, right next to the hospital, but for the dental services clinic in University Hospital.
Earlier in the conversation I had confessed that wild horses couldn’t drag me back to the school services. But he insisted and spent a great deal of time making me understand that, at the school clinics they ‘can’ get to different numbing tactics, but at the hospital clinic, that was all they had. Forgive me, but my brain was mush by this time, after such a day.
At any rate, he called back with a number, I called it today, and I have decided to give it one more shot. (I’m not promising to stay any longer.:D) This visit will have the advantage of not being for work, just an assessment and consultation.
Also, while my husband will take me for the consultation, for the actual procedure, should I decide to move forward, I have decided to get a girl friend to come with me. Seeing me like that was hard on my husband, he was lost for what to do, when a hug and a ‘there, there’ weren’t enough, he, at one point, was just standing over me saying, ‘stop crying, stop crying’. I realize he didn’t mean it that way, he wanted me to stop crying so he could talk to me and calm me down. Fortunately he possesses other virtues. He was as caught off guard as I was, definitely.
If this next visit results in something other than, “yeah, yeah, whatever, we intend, same old, same old”, I hope to move forward.