Small surgery mild anxiety
I am being selfish today, I am writing this for me because I need it you may or may not get something out of it, if not, I will do better on the next one. I have to have a small oral surgery tomorrow to get rid of an infection that crept into an old root canal it’s very close to one of the screws that held the shattered bones in my face together. Obviously, I can’t have an infection in the bones or instrumentation in my head, which does not ease my anxiety about having anything done to my mouth or face.
For those of you who have also had over 20 surgeries understand it is hard to concede to any additional work no matter the need or how small. I have been comforted by the fact I don’t need any anesthesia other than a local and the procedure won’t involve much more than a typical root canal. I think about sitting in the chair and hearing the drills and the tapping against my bone dully trying to settle down. Because of my facial paralysis and constant numbness most pronounce on the left upper palate but encompassing my entire upper tooth row, I can’t help but worry the procedure may worsen it and it can. Needless to say, I really want to put this off. I can’t. My past efforts to understand how all of this works has paid off immensely. I understand any added procedures have the power to send me back a little to when I was very hurt. I know the past is the past and has nothing to do nor will change the percentage of success or risk of my little thing tomorrow.
It took me a very long time, mostly because of the post traumatic stress disorder, to learn that memories are memories and they can’t hurt me anymore. The memories of the glass, metal and blood won’t come over me and flood my current state with harshness of that past reality, making me sweat and shake as I watch that film run. Of course carrying the film in my head is hard sometimes and can be triggered by a few things, I solidly rest on the fact the past memories will not encompass current reality, my reality is a small procedure and I can do it with out a problem and I have a good doctor taking care of it.
The above paragraph may be hard to understand and I will talk more about post traumatic stress disorder later. Essentially PTSD is a cache of memories I and other carry around in our heads that can overcome anything else. It is sort of like super turbo charged deja vu, where you are there hearing, seeing, smelling and feeling all that happened usually in a violent circumstance.
Geez, I wish I could relive my college graduation parties with such vividness, why can’t we do that?
Cheers!
JP
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