The Procedure

The boss's silver gray hair and beard are worn closely shorn and crows feet are pushing their way through the otherwise smooth olive complexion. This 8am meeting has been decided upon months ago; the consequence of negative reactions to stress on my part.  I am clearly nervous about this and he knows it.  Everybody in his office can see it.  All of his cohorts offer smiles and friendly hellos, but I know the truth of the pain that will be upon me soon.  I offer light banter to the boss, perhaps to befriend this man with the silver tools designed for efficient torture and effective long range results.  He grunts in reply and then goes on to lecture me about rules and boundaries and plans and restrictions.  All of the consequences of breaking the rules will begin to show their ugly heads today - somewhere in this office.  He has followed a carefully worded outline that he has me sign and date.  I don't want to agree with him, but his threatening  growl of a voice demands obediance.  We have a contract and contracts are not to be broken.

An attractive young woman leads me to a "procedure room".  The walls are covered in soothing tones of teal and aqua.  The pleasantness fails to offset the coldness of the bright steel instruments and large gray procedure chair that dominates the bright florescent light in small room.  The woman has me sit in the chair and she covers me with a heavy lead apron and funky full body blue paper blanket.  She dons bright purple plastic gloves, asks me if I am comfortable, and tells me not to worry - she will give me some drugs to mask the initial stages of the painful torture I am about to be submitted to.  I ask about the paper blanket, and she pauses, looks at her feet and tells me that this particular procedure can get kind of wet.  She gives me a large handful of pills and a dixie cup of water which I gratefully down in one slug.  I start to tell her how nervous and jumpy I am.  She tells me she has just the thing for me and she straps a heavy rubber mask across my nose and tightens it down behind the chair.  I tell her it is pretty tight and she condescendingly reaches behind me and pretends to make it better.  The mask digs into my face.

The boss comes into the room, sits on a low stool, pulls on his white gloves and black rimmed eyeglasses that have what appear to be jeweler's magnification glass attached to the regular eyeglass.  The chair I am sitting in begins to move; I am quickly lowered to a nearly upside down position, face up, head lower than heels.  My face is basically in the boss's lap.  He tells me tilt my head back farther and then he yanks my mouth open wide with a strong thumb and forfinger; allowing him acces to the deepest recess of my jaw, and slowly he thrusts a long needle into my head.  Eight injections of novacaine in eight different spots.  Eight.  The injections are monitored by a machine that keeps track of the dosage and timing.  Every few seconds it beeps and in an English accent it sounds like the machine is saying "Bruising, ... Swelling".  I am going out of my mind with the pain.  My feet and arms flail with each new piercing, every new dosage.  After about ten minutes the boss smiles and tells me he will be back soon.  Purple gloves asks me if I am okay.  I grunt at her through my tears and wonder how much worse would this feel without all the pain meds she she gave me, if they really were pain meds.  Slowly the novacaine begins to take effect and my jaw, upper mouth and sinus go numb.  Purple girl appears to be fiddling around and then suddenly she is in my face and inserts an unusually shaped metal object deeply into my mouth, bruising the bones in my face.  She tells me to be still.  After my controlled gagging - she removes the object.  An image appears on the computer screen above - it is a picture of my teeth, jaw and sinus area.  She tells me that she will take three pictures during the procedure.  What, do they show it to others to warn them?  Do they want to be sure to cause as much pain without causing permanent damamge?  Or is it part of his trophy collection?

Boss returns, glances at the picture and jostles through his tools.  The collection of instuments looked so organied when I entered the room and now it sounds as though he can't find what he wants.  He growls at purple girl and she leaves the room but soon she returns.  I observe through various comments that Purple girl is not the brightest of the crayons in the box. 

My mouth is then forced open as wide as it can get and the two of them begin to mess around with my teeth and gums.  I'm not sure what they are doing really, until I see him jam a drill in the back of my mouth.  The noise vibrates my innerds and the sound is grueling.  Purple girl is flooding my mouth with salt water.  Instantly nausea overwhelms me.  Now I know why it is a wet procedure; salt water plus a hole in the head equal  vomit and blood.  Purple girl takes another picture and then the boss decides to drill deeper.  He rummages for a 10mm something-or-other instead of the 8 mm something-or-other he had planned on.  He thinks my  head has more room before puncturing the sinus.  When he finally finishes with the drill he jams a piece of titanium steel into my head.  His belly is leaning against my right arm, shutting off my circulation, but I am afraid to move it for fear of him losing his control and doing permanent damage.  Eventually he stands up to put more torque on the screw he's inserted.  My arm is relieved, but Purple girl continues to drown me with the toxic liquid.  She ineffectively vacuums it out when I begin to gag.  I lose track of time in my semi-concious state, but eventually I can feel that the novacaine beginning to wear off.  I can feel each stitch they put in my mouth, each new piercing in the already inflammed area.  My sinus feels as though it has a football shoved inside, and my mouth feels battered and bruised, thoroughly inflamed.  After the boss finishes with me, purple girl leads me to a different room where another pretty lady asks me for money and tells me to return in week.  I druggedly ask her if am I to return for more of the same.  She giggles and gives me a reminder card and a receipt.


OKAY
Really -
This is Implant surgery seen through the mask of "Laughing Gas".  Nitrous is cool.
The doctor and the office was fine, my imagination had fun.