Thursday, July 10, 2008

Unexpected news

Tuesday I had a follow-up appointment at the oral surgeon for the two molars that I had to have extracted. I went to the dentist a few weeks back, with pain in my jaw. After xrays showed that my roots were infected, and a consult with an oral surgeon, it was decided that I would have the teeth yanked. The recovery has taken longer than I wanted, but I'm in pretty good shape right now as I write this. Let's just say it's a good thing that I like ramen soup and jell-o. In any case, the removal of teeth wasn't the reason for this post.

I made it into the little chair to wait for the doctor to see me, and after a short time he popped in. Seeing how this was a follow-up, I knew it was going to be an in-and-out deal. So, the doctor pops in and starts me off with, "Well, the pathology reports came back in, and you'll be happy to note that it was negative." Pathology report? WHAT? I was like, "Um .... pathology report?" He says that while doing the extraction, he found a cyst in the walls of my gum that was most likely the cause of the infection. That makes sense, since I put off going to see anyone in the first place. On a side note, I hate dentists. I hate having things stuck in my mouth, I hate gagging, I hate the sight of the dental tools, I hate the burning smell the drill makes (even when it's not being used on you), I hate the taste of the nasty flouride paste that they put in the little mouth piece, I hate the spotlight they invariably end up shining directly into your eyes, I hate the little things they make you bite down on while doing xrays, and probably most of all: I hate the sound of the drill, which you can hear from the waiting area, and it makes me want to run out to the safety of my car every time. Now, with this being my opinion of dental health, you can imagine how much it took for me to go to an oral surgeon in the first place. I even stayed and had the procedure. This was mainly due to my doctor and his wonderful staff. Except for the wench initial receptionist who gave me such a hard time for not filling out her stupid forms for the millionth time. Jackweed. Well, to get back to my point - there was a "growth" found, that they sent out for a biopsy. The doctor said they told me after my procedure, but I really wasn't in a good way what with the taste of blood fresh in my mouth. Well, my focus was on the report from Quest so I didn't really listen to much to the doctor at this point. He checked me out, and saw that my healing was going well. I then looked at the report again, and saw NEGATIVE on the paper. I was about two seconds from wanting a copy to make sure again that there was no cancerous stuff found.

It shook me up for a few hours. Even though the report was negative, I didn't even think that cancer was even a possibility. Just a wakeup call for me, that's for sure.

1 comment:

the Cardon Clan said...

I better not let Craig read this post. He may shed a tear or two. he he. Glad we can join you in the blogging world! Keep in touch.