October 1997
Sincerely Sire Newsletter
Wimp Or Warrior?
On September 11, 1997, at
11:30 a.m. at the dentally old age of
47, I very bravely, indeed, had an impacted wisdom tooth completely ripped out
of my lower right jaw. There was blood
everywhere: on the chair, on the doctor’s plastic glasses and all over my teeth
and face and in my hair.
The nurses were amazed at how
truly cool and courageous I was through it all. Even the doctor was shocked at the pain I
was enduring with such magnificent and truly warrior-like calm. “It’s almost as if he’s sleeping,” he said -
- - Which, of course, I was.
I wanted to have my wisdom
tooth extracted without any Novocain or anything at all because I am extremely
tough, but they told me it would go faster if I were knocked out. And since I am such a busy man, I agreed to
the timesaving method.
As a matter fact, it was over
in a split second.
Now, I really don’t know, for
sure, if there was blood everywhere,
or not, but I am sure it was very gory and I was extremely brave. I could tell because when I woke up everyone
looked at me with great sympathy, as if I were very gallant and strong - - -
everyone except my wife, of course. Old
bright eyes looked at me and exclaimed, “You look great. Let’s hit it.”
“Hit what,” I mumbled,
throwing my arm up in front of my jaw like a drunken sailor. “Where am I?”
“At the oral surgeon’s
office. Come on. Get up. I’ve got a nail appointment.”
“The General Surgeon of the
“Oh, forget it,” she said as
she yanked me up and balanced me in a standing position. The nurse saw me teetering and kindly offered
me a wheel chair, but just as I was about to accept, Roe (my wife), asked her
if she were kidding.
“You’re a wimp,” Roe said as
she stuffed me into the car.
“What does Heidi Fleis have
to do with this?” I replied. “I am not a
pimp.”
I was in great pain for the
next five days. I took prescription
painkillers every 4 hours with Tylenol in-between. All the while she’s calling me a wimp and
snickering at me when I tell her how much it hurts. And my 21-year-old daughter, Scarlett, was
quick to join in the fun. (She, a few
weeks earlier, had had all four of
her wisdom teeth pulled and was out partying a few days later.) “Yeah, Dad,” she said giggling, “you’re a wimp.”
“Maybe I’ve got a dry
socket,” I said. (That’s where you have
no blot clot and your bone and nerves are just kind of hanging out, a blowin’
in the wind.)
“You don’t have a dry
socket,” Roe said. “You’re just a wimp.”
So - - - I can’t stand it
anymore and I go back to the General Surgeon, I mean the Oral Surgeon. He takes the stitches out and tells me to
take these other pills for five days. I
take the pills. I put heat on my
jaw. I freeze my jaw. I take more painkillers. Nothing works. My jaw is killing
me.
“It hurts!” I tell Roe.
“Wimp,” she replies.
“Yeah
Daddy, you’re a wimp” Scarlett says
like a parrot.
For two more days I twitch my
feet and roll around on the couch like a heroin addict going cold turkey. Something’s got to be wrong. I go back to the doctor. “Hum,” he says. “Shouldn’t still be hurting after seven
days. You aren’t by any chance a wimp
are you?” He pokes around in my
mouth. “I think you’ve got a dry
socket. Only about 2% get a dry socket,
but I think you’ve got one.”
He stuffs some clove-tasting
packing in my wound, and almost instantly the pain is gone. “Well,” I say to the nurses as I walk tall
from the office “did you hear that? Dry socket!”
Roe is in the kitchen talking
with the parrot when I get home. “What
are you smiling about?” Roe asks me.
I take a deep breath as I
hitch up my pants and prepare to lay it on ‘em - - -“Dry Socket baby. Dry Socket.
I haven’t been a Wimp at all.
I’ve been a Warrior! A Warrior
you hear me!”
“Yeah, Daddy,” Scarlett
chirps in. “You’re a Worrier. You’re a
Worrier!”
“That too,” Roe says.
I give up and gulp down the rest of my painkillers.
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