Freaking Out

Yesterday, I went to the oral surgeon, Dr. Atebara, for a consultation. My regular dentist, Dr. Patsy Fujimoto, basically is afraid that my lower right wisdom tooth is pushing against my last tooth and is starting to kill my last tooth. When I saw her earlier this month, she said it was a hard extraction for her, but for an oral surgeon, it would be "5 minutes," so I went into my consultation with no worries.

Dr. Atebara walks in, introduces himself, then says, "you know this is going to be a VERY difficult procedure," then he continues to smile. (WTF???) He then shows me a brochure with a picture of wisdom teeth from young people to a 25 year old. He shows me the facial nerve, and I guess by the time you are 25, your facial nerve is basically between the impacted wisdom tooth. I am way past 25, so that facial nerve must be wrapped around my tooth.Wait, there's more. There's always more. He says the risk is that if he damages the facial nerve, I could lose feeling from my midline of my mouth to the right side PERMANENTLY. He says sometimes people have problems with drool, speech problems and difficulty putting on lipstick because that numb feeling you get after you had a cavity filled can become a permanent feeling.

My first thought? How the hell am I going to cook Sunday dinner? I hope I don't cook and drool!! Second thought - what if I can't read out loud anymore? I talked to Dr. Patsy again, and she still thinks I need to do this, but I'm still freaked out. Dr. Atebara tells me before I leave, "you know I do this procedure all the time, and if I tell you it's going to be hard, it's going to be hard." I am not one to turn away from hard, but today, I will allow myself to freak out and get weepy and blame it on the Michael Jackson memorial.

Tomorrow we go to family court with Ahi for a shoplifting charge from last year, so tonight I will gather all his character reference letters and his grades, and we will gather around him because he is our son, and no matter what, he is a good boy who made a mistake, but today, I will cry for myself just for a little while.