What could possibly go wrong?

Fainting at the dentist's office doesn't seem like it should be that unusual. But perhaps that is my illogical fear of dentists showing through. Anyway, that was my day. Arrive at the dentist. Sit in chair. Talk with assistant about possible complications. Receive injection of lidocaine & epinephrine into gums and cheek from friendly and rather rushed oral surgeon. Promptly faint. Come to with your head down and legs in the air. Hear your blood pressure: 60/40. Hear your pulse: 200. Hear assistant on the phone with the operator, trying to dial 911. Everyone realizes you've come to. Questions: do you have a heart condition? Have you ever fainted before? (Try to answer but realize your tongue has gone entirely numb from the local anesthetic) Hear oral surgeon on the phone with your cardiologist's nurse. Get scolded for not wearing a giant red sign that says, "I might faint for no good reason." Resume extraction of rotten tooth.


That's how I discovered I should always tell a doctor or oral surgeon I might not tolerate epinephrine - even if it's just injected into the inside of my cheek. I find it rather hilarious that this is how my body is made. That a needle of anesthetic at the dentist could trigger such a cascade of events. That I am asked to shoulder this burden without complaining - and without bursting out laughing when I come to in a dentist's office with a dentist pawing my oral cavity and a hygienist dialing an ambulance. What a sense of humor the Big Guy Upstairs must have!

Sorry. I believe I may have just waxed laconic to a rather large audience. I should probably have take my friend Amy's advice and avoid writing while under the influence of pain medication. All I have to say is, minus one rotten molar, I am doing alright, fainting at the dentist's notwithstanding. I am still here, anxiously awaiting that appointment September 2nd with the eminent physician at Mayo who may, just may, be able to decipher this entire mess. Until then, on I go, forward through whatever the road ahead may hold.


Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (from I Corinthians 12)