Yesterday was one of the most traumatic days of my life. A man named Dr. Felfel, who looked like a lot of his fellow students and was therefore difficult to recognize when I saw him the second time, violently extracted my infected wisdom tooth at 6:20 PM on a unusually warm November day, the week before Thanksgiving. Dr. Felfel wasn't the sort of doctor to talk about things, or make you feel comfortable or show any sort of empathy to his patients. I felt rather like an annoyance to him, a mouth with teeth that shouldn't be able to speak. Just open wide and shut up. He went over the procedure quick. I'm going to cut your flesh open, then drill your tooth in two maybe three pieces, then take them out. Alright? Alright. When I asked him whether or not to take some gas a small grin of incomprehension came over his face. 'What, are you afraid of the needle?' The only obvious answer of course was, no not at all. 'Well then you should be fine.' And that was the end of it. I would have rather gone over this subject a little longer, what the positives and negatives were, the cost, how many people prefer gas, what sort of dreams I would have and most importantly how many people had regretted their decision not to use gas. Meanwhile Dr. Felfel opened his tool kit, which looked more like something from the middle ages, big grips and hammers and other silver sharp objects that would be more likely to be found in a gardeners tool shed. The anesthesia was actually fine. People had warned me for this injection, but to much of my relief it wasn't as painful at all. The traumatic events happened only after, when my entire skull and jaw were vibrating and I could see the reflection of my oozing mouth in Dr. Felfel's glasses. I closed my eyes, hoping to would be beter, but seeing the doctors face was a better distraction from the pulling and cracking sound then total blackness. While the blood gushed out Dr. Felfel decided to leave me in the chair for a moment to get something. What exactly never became clear, I suspect him from using the bathroom or taking a sip of water, either of which seem irrelevant when you have a patient oozing blood from a split open tooth. When he came back the stitching began. Everytime I opened my eyes I saw a long thread coming out of my mouth, tainted red, with blood dripping from it. I only figured out he was done when he took off his gloves and looked at something behind me (a new patient? An attractive colleague?). He handed me an ice pack and told me not to spit. There I stood with my ice pack and a numb cheek. I felt violated and shocked. I wanted to ask him whether his wisdom teeth had been taken out yet. And how he had felt about it. I wanted to ask him if this was always how it went, or if he had just had a bad week. Instead I just stood there, frozen. Even if I would've tried to speak nothing but blood and spit would've come out anyway. He must've known, because when I looked up he was gone.
