About a week prior to leaving for LA, I had a crown come off of a molar and part of the remaining tooth beneath broke off as well. My dentist stated I had a large amount of decay; the tooth could not be saved and would have to be surgically extracted. This tooth had NOT had a root canal prior to the crown being placed, and with the decay my dentist was amazed that I wasn’t in pain. Trying to clear up the infection first, he prescribed amoxicillin and scheduled the extraction for a week later.
Lucky me, that’s today.
Soon after this original appointment, I was in agony. My Dentist added Flagyl to the antibiotic I was already taking and Norco for pain. The pharmacist informed me that Flagyl was so strong it would, “kill anything” and one side effect I may experience is that my tongue would feel “hairy.” Perfect.
I was scheduled to leave for LA the next day. I was miserably ill. The combined medicines were causing me severe nausea and vomiting. I packed some saltine crackers and cherry Lifesavers in my purse, climbed aboard the airplane, hoping for the best. There was no way I was missing The Dr. Nina Show. I’d been waiting on this interview for months. I was sick the entire 5-hour flight, vomiting several times. Those saltine crackers and lifesavers didn’t help one bit.
I’m 5’9” and had on 4 inch heels, so after rushing to the bathroom to get sick, I realized I couldn’t fit all of me in the tiny little room and close the door. In order for me to bend over and vomit, I had to leave the door open with my feet, legs and behind stuck out into the walkway of the plane. I’m sure this was a visually stunning image for the rest of the passengers. I was distraught and alone. Even worse, I had no one to hold my hair.
There were times I didn’t make it to the bathroom and I ended up dousing empty seats with my disgusting vomit, which, thanks to the unhelpful Lifesavers, was bright red. At one point, I felt a hand on my back, and heard the nicest voice ask if I was okay. I had an angel of a flight attendant who rubbed my back, brought me ginger ale, and gave me damp cloths several times.
I arrive in LA at 8:30 am. I get my rental car and head for my hotel. I arrive to check in and the gentleman working the front desk takes one look at me and says, “oh wow.” I tell him that I have a reservation and without reminding me that check-in is actually at 3pm and I’m six hours early, the man starts typing away on his keyboard, saying to himself, “please let there be a room ready.” He announces joyfully, “Yes, there is a room!” He hands me my key and I’m off to my room where I immediately fall into bed. Seven hours later, I meet Dr. Nina for dinner. I don’t eat much, but she is so incredible, that I almost forget about my pain and nausea. She drops me off and I am back in bed as quickly as I can get there. I’m still in misery and wondering, how I will ever make it through the radio show in the morning.
Thank God, I’m a savage-warrior-woman.
The next morning I meet Dr. Nina at her fabulous, high-rise office, and she drives us to the radio station. While riding, I ask if there is vending at the radio station because I’m nauseated from the medicine and I’m hoping some crackers might help. She says that certainly we can find something. We arrive at the station and there is a sign on the elevator that says, “Out of service.” We have to climb four huge flights of stairs. I take off my 5-inch heels and as soon as we make it up one flight, I knew I was in trouble. Everything started spinning, I was dizzy and sweating, and I knew if I didn’t sit down, I was going to fall down. The owner of the radio station arrives and takes one look at me and says, “oh no.” I rest for a while and then eventually make my way up the stairs.
The good news is there is vending in the basement. The bad news is the only way to get there is the non-working elevator. No one at the radio station has anything to eat. Dr. Nina hands me a butterscotch disc, a bottled water, and a handful of hope. She looks concerned, as does the owner of the station. The broadcast is set to start in twelve minutes.
An engineer at the station walks in with his lunch. They immediately take it, rifle through it, and offer me some grapes. I ate half of them. Shockingly, they really helped and the show went off as planned. Afterwards, still feeling poorly, I headed for In-N-Out Burger, thinking that would help. It didn’t. I felt so terrible, I took my rental car back to the airport and checked in for my 10pm flight at noon. I found somewhere to lay down and didn’t move for most of the next ten hours.
When I walked to the gate for my flight I heard a familiar voice say, “are you feeling better?” It was her–the angel flight attendant. I laughed and said to her, “you must be thinking, ‘OH NO! NOT HER! THE VOMITTER!!!’” She was so kind, laughing and telling her co-workers how sick I had been. They all looked at me with dread and then one of the men put his two fingers to his eyes and then aimed them back at me and said, “I’m watching you.”
Believe it or not, I made it home without getting sick once.
I called my dentist and reported my misery. They called in yet another antibiotic and said they couldn’t give me anything else for pain. Thank you, Dr. Lecter. The next four days were total hell and that gets me to present day. Lucky me. My appointment to have the tooth surgically extracted is at noon. Not only do I hate the Dentist, but I have an extreme fear of the Dentist as well. I’m nervous from the moment I wake up. You know who loves to appear when there is fear and anxiety, right? The Homecoming Queen of Crazy Town. She is so happy to help me through times like these. Always ready to act up, show her ass, and earn her title.
I arrive at his office and I’m already white-knuckled, with a bad attitude. The receptionist smiles and says hi. The Queen insists it’s a fake smile and that we should not trust her friendly face. The assistant arrives to lead me back to the torture chamber with my name on it. She puts a blood pressure cuff on me, which the Queen says is a sign there is trouble coming. Pain is most certainly in our future, why else would they need to track our blood pressure? I’ve never had that before, so begrudgingly, I have to agree with the Queen.
The Dentist comes in and asks how I’ve been. I quickly give him a rundown of the hell I’ve been in and he explains that getting the tooth out will help significantly. Then he starts the numbing injections. Typically, these don’t bother me much. He begins to start the extraction and tells me I may feel pressure, but if I feel pain to let him know. Within seconds, I feel excruciating pain. I let him know. I try very hard not to provide verbal proof of every curse word I know. I’m upset. This isn’t going well. I want to cancel. The Queen is outraged and demands to take over. She wants me to scream my wide range of phrases that include the F-Bomb. I want to vomit.
He says he will give me more numbing injections. These next injections really hurt. It felt like they were going through something crunchy and hard and I felt the pain deep in my nerves or whatever the heck is down there. He gave me four of them and each was more painful than the one before. I was doing reverse backbends in the chair trying to get away from him. Now I’m really upset–we’ve lost trust. I’m quite numb, but very agitated and annoyed. I’m thinking of reasons to get out of the chair and away from him. Without much work at all, he says, “it’s out.” It’s too late, though, I’m traumatized. Those injections were no joke and I’m not happy. I want to cry; my hands are shaking and I want to throw up. He asks if I’m okay. I indignantly say no.
They’re looking at me and I hear the Christian music playing through the speakers. The Queen is imploring me to provide proof of what a sinner I am capable of being in this moment. She wants me to yell every expletive known to man. She wants me to shock them all and make them ban me from this office forever because of my outrageous behavior. I want to relinquish full control to the Queen and show them why she rules over Crazy Town. Then, they offer me Apple Juice. I’m thinking to myself, “what in the Sam hell?” Is that what you give people you have upset and hurt? Apple Juice? Well, who knew?
Noted.
I pay the bill, thinking the entire time that this is BS that I have to pay to be tortured and mistreated. I get to the car. I do what everyone does, I text my friend. She knows I’m crazy at the dentist, but she supports me nonetheless and says, “I had no idea that apple juice was a cure all! WTF!!” This makes me feel better. We go back and forth about the next time the doctor wants to provide pain meds for something we will tell him no thank you, we’ll just take some apple juice. Sarcasm almost always helps.
The Queen is not happy that I subdued her and rational, mature Kelley prevailed.
She is insisting, though, that next time, I wear my damn tiara.