My Dental Surgery Experience

My appointment on Thursday was for 10 A.M. so I left home at 8:15 A.M. estimating that it would take close to 1 ½ hours to cover the 5.5 miles in a semi-brisk walk to the dentist’s clinic, with enough time to fill out the necessary paperwork when I got there. The walk was pretty uneventful except for an approximately 50 meter section without a sidewalk on a narrow street and seeing a couple of my patients in the central part of Long Beach. I don’t think they recognized me which was probably for the best. I was thinking that central Long Beach was the dicey part of the walk and it was.

After arriving at the dentist, I filled out the expected paperwork since I was a first time patient there. Then after about 15 minutes in their reception area, I was escorted to one of the examination rooms where I waited some more. I spent my time reading a magazine until the doctor saw me. He verified the information that was sent by my referring dentist. He asked me if I had any medical problems and I told him that I had hypertension which was controlled by medications, but was uncontrolled when I visited a doctors’ office like the situation I was in now, which made him laugh. Then I asked him how long the procedure might take and what kind of anesthesia he uses. He said it was the same as the ones used during a colonoscopy (which I had last year). The meds were Fentanyl and Versed which I was familiar with. It’s a good thing he didn’t say Propofol , which killed Michael Jackson. The kind doctor said he was due for a colonoscopy too but he kept putting it off. I encouraged him to do it and told him about my experience with it, how I didn’t feel a thing and didn’t even know that the procedure was done when I woke up.

Then the doctor left to attend to other patients and a medical assistant came to the room and showed me a bill saying what my insurance company will cover and what I have to pay out of pocket. I had to pay 35% of the bill or the whole thing if my insurance company will not reimburse them. Not only that, I was told that their office was out of the network of my insurance plan. Darn! I didn’t know that. I thought that when my regular dentist referred me there, they were in the same network. Oh, well, what can I do? So when the medical assistant asked me if I wanted the procedure done that day, I had little choice but say yes. After all I had already walked all the way there and my teeth needed taking care of. First I asked if they had a payment plan and the answer was no, then I asked if they accepted credit cards and the answer was yes. Credit card it was going to be. Between buying a treadmill, paying to have it assembled, and now the dentist, my credit card is getting quite a workout this billing period. I’ll have to dip into my savings to pay for it when the bill arrives. People are often advised to save for a rainy day and this one is definitely one of those rainy days. I’m so thankful for still having a job!

More waiting followed which lasted for about two hours from the time I got there. I managed to finish reading a whole Time Magazine and part of a Newsweek until I was finally summoned to another treatment room. They had me sit on the chair, hooked me up to a blood pressure machine and pulse oximeter, then a brace was placed underneath my right arm where the doc inserted an IV line. Next they connected EKG leads to my arms and legs. I told them I didn’t realize that I was sitting on an electric chair. Then they put the oxygen mask on (not doubt to keep me from telling any more bad jokes), and injected the anesthesia. I didn’t even realize I was out until I woke up about an hour or so later.

I awoke lying on a bed with a seatbelt tied around my waist. Wow, my first experience on being put in a restraint. Normally I would be the one applying it. I felt woozy so I just stayed in bed while going in and out of a stupor. I could see the doctor and the nurses passing by to check on me. When I finally felt awake enough, I took off the seatbelt and sat on the bed. The doctor stopped by and I asked him how the procedure went and he said it went well. He asked me how I was getting back home since he knew I walked to get there. I told him that I was getting a taxicab. After another half hour they called a cab, gave me a printout of aftercare instructions and a prescription for Amoxicillin and Tylenol #3. The cab drove me back the other way from where I walked in the morning. Cost of walking to the dentist = free, cost of anesthesia and extraction of two teeth = $905.00, cost of taxicab for 5.5 miles = $20.00 plus tip. Left home at 8:15 A.M., didn’t get back till 3 P.M. I did my own unintentional version of fasting (my Muslim friends are fasting from dawn to dusk during Ramadan for 30 days). I hadn’t eaten from 8 P.M. the previous night until 4 P.M. the next day which was a 20 hour fast. Since I was in no position to drive to the pharmacy to have my prescription filled, I waited till the next day, and I didn’t even have them fill the order for Tylenol #3 because I wasn’t in much pain. Imagine that, rejecting narcotics!

Remember the Christmas song “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth”? My own version would be “My Two Back Teeth”, which I lost yesterday. The tooth fairy hasn’t left me anything yet. Maybe I should have gotten the Tylenol #3 after all.