The Adventures of Team Oakley: the wisdom adventures, pt 2... "the nasty"

Unlike Beka's smooth sailing the dental procedures, Michael's was downright awful!

Like Beka, Michael had not been to the dentist in many, many years. But his was a bit more dreary than his wife's. He had many many procedures that needed to be done, starting with the wisdom teeth removal. On his day-o-doom Beka was lucky enough to have a friend, Cassidy, to come along to drive the 50 mins it took to get to the dentist, and to be an extra hand if needed.

The three of us left for the dentist in the wee hours of the morning. When we were there, they quickly ushered Michael and Beka into the back room, and got him set up. Beka heard the speech of how to take care of Michael, then left him for surgery.

Michael waited for longer than he had hoped, and heard a procedure in the next room over taking place. When the patient next door woke up, he said "I feel strong, like Peter Pan."

Michael got his very first ever IV, and soon was off in a twilight sleep. Beka was asked to come back after the procedure was done, and he was just barely waking up. He was mumbling something under his breath, and he had a mouth full of gauze. The Nurse and Beka started to walk him to the car that Cassidy was pulling around. He was not his usual self - swift on his feet. He kept smiling and telling the nurse "thank you" which was a mumbled mess of nothing through the gauze. After we got him into the car, he insisted on Beka giving him a kiss on the cheek before they took off.

Michael fresh out of surgery.

On the way home, about 10 mins into the drive, Michael grabbed his phone and typed "did I wake up in the car?" He did not remember anything that went on before that moment. He also thought that he was driving, because he was sitting in the back seat behind Cassidy driving. He wrote a mess of other funny things, including, but not limited to “are my lips closed?” It was quite entertaining…then things went bad.

We stopped at walgreens to drop of his prescription for percocet. Beka was going to just going to run in, drop it off, take mike home, then pick it up later, but a VERY drugged Michael was more than insistent on coming in and waiting. He was walking up and down the isles, dancing a bit, and telling Beka how good he felt. This lasted about 5 mins, with Beka telling him to take it easy….then he hit bottom. Luckily, he was near a chair, and he sank into it. He admitted to not feeling well, and asked Beka to call an ambulance (which she did not, being that she had been through something similar with him before). Beka got Cassidy, and they both attended to the patient. Michael was pale, and sweating profusely. He asked to be taken to the bathroom, a request in which Cassidy fulfilled. He helped Michael to his feet and put him in a stall. After a few moments, Cassidy helped him to the car, and we were off to home to relax. Michael felt about two percent better when we arrived home, and Cassidy helped Michael inside, and put him on the pull out that he had made. Looking back on all of this, Cassidy was the BIGGEST blessing that day. There were times when he was almost carrying Michael, and, well, better him then little Beka.

At home Michael was feeling better, but got his second nose bleed of the day. Beka called the dentist who said that was normal, but annoying. Beka gave Michael some eggs, a percocet, the wii controller, and Cassidy to play with, hoping the worst was over. However hoping is never enough.

Michel trying to no be in pain.

We shortly learned that Michael has an extreme immunity to percocet. Though he had never taken it, it did not make him feel anything, and the pain remained. So if anyone has ever had an oral surgery, imagine the pain with no relief! He was horrible!

Beka was trying to make him feel better

and so was scrappy...

Cassidy snapped this beauty...

All Thursday night and all of Friday, Michael was with no pain medicine. We stopped giving him the pecocet, as it was not helping, and nothing else that was over the counter helped either. All day it was tortourous to watch him in so much pain. And on top of that, the whole first day whenever he would look down he would get a nose bleed. Also, the stitches in his mouth had long ends, that when he tried to eat, would pull and twist his sores in his mouth. He had no relief to pain, and could not eat. It was bad times in the Oakley house.

On Saturday Beka took Michael to the doctors to help him with the pain. The dentist that did the surgery was able to see him. He trimmed the ends of the stitches down, and popped a sort of blood blister in his mouth (which Michael said was quite painful). He also gave Michael Hydrocodone, which Michael had taken before and reacted well to.

Once we were home, and Michael had some pain meds in his system, things FINALLY quieted down. After 48 hours of pain and hard times, he finally felt some relief. YAY!

Things looked better after that. Well, for a while…..

A week and two days after the original surgery, Michael went to bed feeling great on Friday night. We had a fun weekend planned, and he was feeling almost all better. Saturday morning he woke up at 4am to a mouth full of blood. He washed his mouth out, and went back to sleep. Beka and him got up at 7 am for the day, and his mouth was full of blood again! He was in extreme pain, and called the dentist. He was told to put some gauze in, and see if the bleeding stopped. He tried to go about his day, but the bleeding was just getting worse. It was bleeding into his gums and making them swell over his back teeth. After a few hours of that, he called the dentist back who told him to bite down on gauze as hard as he could, and come in ASAP. When Michael bit down on the gauze, he nearly passed out from the pain. It was very scary.

The dentist is about an hour away, and it seemed like 5 with the pain Michael was having to endure. It killed Beka to see him like that! When they finally arrived, he had to wait for about a half an hour before he could be seen. At first we did not get our regular dentist (the one who did the surgery), we got the sweetest woman next door to our regular guy. She was so sympathetic to Michael’s pain, and was gentle, and so awesome. Michael said she was his angel. She was the biggest blessing!!!

After lots of suction and some numbing shots, the regular dentist showed up. He was in regular clothes, and looked like we had interrupted a golf game. Unlike the sweet angel we had before, our regular dentist meant business! He wasted no time in clipping and snipping and suctioning and causing extreme pain! It turns out that Michael had something like a dry socket. There was a flap of skin that was stitched down from the surgery, which was normal. But there was a pocket underneath that came loose and bled and bled and bled. It would have bled for days if we had not gone into the dentist. The doctor had to snip the stitches, pull up the flap of semi healed gums, scoop out the socket, suck out all the nasty, and re-stitch Michael back up…..it was traumatic! Michael was not numb for most of it either!

Afterwards the doc gave him an antibiotic, and more pain meds. Michael got to the car, and had a little bit of a melt down. He was in so much pain, and the dentist was so abrasive, that he was literally in shock. It was awful….

When we got home he had to have gauze in his mouth with pressure for 24 hours, so eating was very hard. Beka made him play video games all day and relax. His parents stopped by with some Jello and juice, and visited for a bit. The next day Michael awoke to much less pain, and finally some hope of this ordeal being over. More than two weeks later, his is fine and well. All of the ordeal and pain is behind him, and he is waiting for the next torture ( two root canals) to be in his future. He is a tough kid, and has been through a lot.

Scrappy is consoling Michael on his rough day.