No Bagels, No Pumpkins

Today went better than I had expected.  We arrived around 7:30am and spent a few minutes going over last minute details and questions.  We were actually walking out of the building at 8:30am, so it went really fast. 

There were the usual events that were comical, probably just to me, but I figured I would share them anyway.

Dr. ENT came in and explained what he expected to happen, injected the anesthetic, and left to go get into scrubs.  Here’s a sidenote.  He decided to numb my cheek area first.  This is the area I was most nervous about.  Previously any work I had done on my cheek was excruciating.  Especially, the anesthestic injection.  Instead of injecting the local straight into my cheek, he chose to inject through the top of my upper gums.  I didn’t feel A THING!  It was awesome. 

So he comes back, dressed all in scrubs, and I had a strange flashback to my Sexy Smurf outfit from the MRI.  He puts drapes over me and a nice cold washcloth over my eyes.  Then he asks, “So did anyone have a more exciting weekend than I did”?  I almost cracked up right there.  First, because no one in the room had any idea what his weekend was like…Did he go all crazy and hang out at a star studded tractor pull event?  Or perhaps it was some insanely intense high stakes pinochle tournament?  Secondly, my face was so numb, if I even tried to speak it would have sounded like “Hmfr Gfs nprg snb”. 

I stayed quiet for most of the rest of the procedure until it came time for him to pack the incision on my face.  He explained that I would smell something unpleasant.  He wasn’t kidding.  It was far worse than last time.  Nasty, nasty, nasty smell.  It reminded me of my first year anatomy class at San Diego State.  After taking the lab portion of the class, I couldn’t eat chicken for months.  It was far too difficult considering how easily I could identify what I was eating.  I began to tell him this story and explained that now it would probably be a very very long time before I tried to toast a bagel.  He made the mistake of laughing at my joke without realizing that when I get the laugh, it does nothing but encourage me to go for another.

Sure enough, he started on my scalp.  I felt him make the incision and start to go to work.

“Hey Doc”.

“Yes”?

“Now you’ve ruined pumpking carving too”.