The Infamous Wisdom Teeth Extraction (RERUN FROM 3/25/09)

About four years ago, I had my wisdom teeth removed during spring break. Needless to say, my spring break is much more enjoyable this year. This blog post, all about my wisdom teeth surgery, was originally published in March of 2009. Enjoy the repost! 

I finally did it, went under the knife and had all four of my wisdom teeth removed. It must be understood that my decision to have the surgery has been a long, desolate road lined with guilt and coercion that began a decade ago when those tiny extra molars were just a blip on an x-ray.

The dentist first tried to convince me to get them taken out when I was in my early twenties. He referred me to an oral surgeon and told me to check with my insurance company. At that time, I was still on my parents' insurance so I took the information home to my mother.

"These young dentists with their new ideas! They just want to take wisdom teeth out before they even cause any problems. His father (our former family dentist before his retirement) would have never recommended it! You shouldn't have to go through this kind of surgery unless there's something really wrong with you. It's not worth it!" And she threw away the referral.

Over the next few years, if I brought up the dentist's suggestion, my mother would dismiss it.

"That's ridiculous. Your father, grandmother, and I still have ours, and nothing's wrong with us. Don't let those young dentists guilt you into an unnecessary surgery." I didn't have the nerve to tell her that my guilt wasn't really originating from the dentist.

So I quit bringing it up. By my mid-twenties, my wisdom teeth still hadn't even broken through the gums, and I figured they just wouldn't ever come in.

Imagine my surprise when I turned thirty and started teething like a one-year-old. Even though my mother wasn't around anymore to play devil's advocate, her voice still rang out in my head.

"Who cares if they swell up and hurt every now and then, if it hurts when you go in for a cleaning, if they're impacted, if your bottom teeth are growing in at an angle? These young dentists and their new-fangled technology!"

By this time, both my father and brother had had their wisdom teeth removed, and after much guilt-ridden self-talk, I decided to take the plunge and become the next wisdom toothless member of my family.

The funny thing about announcing to the world that you're finally getting your wisdom teeth out is that you're all of a sudden accepted into a secret society with all sorts of weird horror stories about the wisdom tooth extraction experience.

"I woke up half-way through my surgery and tried to tell them I could feel everything, but they wouldn't listen to me. They just continued like I was some experiment in a sci-fi movie!"

"I was given this pill that I was supposed to take two hours before the surgery. It didn't actually kick in until after the surgery, and I felt the whole thing. I threw up all day."

"The surgeon couldn't get my teeth out, they were so huge. He had to put his knee on my chest to pull them out. They won't do that to you. You're too little."

All of these stories are followed by, "That was just my experience. You'll be fine."

Two weeks ago, the reading specialist at my school got a phone call at work. Her son had just had a heart attack.

"He went in to get his wisdom teeth removed," the kindergarten teacher told me, " and he had a heart attack when they administered the sedative. He was only in his twenties."

"I'm getting my wisdom teeth out in two weeks."

"Oh . . . well . . . that won't happen to you. You'll be fine."

I cried pretty much all day before the surgery.

Of course, I was fine.

"I hope Dan had time to get breakfast," I told the nurse as she led me to the recovery room. "It only took five minutes."

"You've been here for an hour."

"Whaaat?"

"Even if you don't feel like it, you need to eat something," the nurse said as she laid me down.

"Oh, I feel like it!" I said through the gauze stuffed in my mouth. "I'm starving."

Dan said I rambled on in the car about being lucid and knowing what I was saying so he wouldn't be able to make fun of me.

"Oh good. I still have a tongue," I supposedly said looking in the car mirror and touching it with my fingers.

I also kept making Dan look in my mouth to make sure they had taken out all four teeth. I couldn't believe they had taken them all out in just five minutes.

Eventually, the sedative wore off, and I became less giddy. I slept the next day, and I did get a little sick from the antibiotics. Once the doctor gave me permission to go off of those, I was fine. My pain was minimal. I didn't even need to take much of the "good stuff" they gave me.

My only complaint is that I was under the impression that the swelling that accompanies wisdom tooth extraction would look like "chipmunk cheeks" which sounds a lot more attractive than the jowels I developed. Instead of resembling a cute, forest creature, I look more like The Incredible Hulk, or as Dan has nicknamed me, "The She-Hulk. She was hot!" Real comforting husband I have taking care of me.

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Happy Easter (Next Week)!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with my extremely organized-to-the-point-of-verging-on-neurotic ways, I like to get things done ahead of time. Therefore, I am publishing my Easter post one week early. I saw a few mentions about Easter on Facebook, so I figured it was fair game.

I also realized, in looking through my past posts, that I have never blogged on Easter, meaning I don't have to rack my brain for a unique angle. I thought I'd go with the "My Favorite Easter Memories" theme. So, here are "My Favorite Easter Memories":

1. Waving palm branches on "Pom-pom Sunday"
This is technically a pre-Easter memory. But, when I was a kid, Palm Sunday was just as big of a deal as Easter. When else were children given free reign to journey through the church aisles, sometimes following a live animal like a donkey (or a goat if a donkey wasn't available), waving around large props? By the way, I used to call Palm Sunday, "Pom-pom Sunday." How cute is that?

2. Easter sunrise services
I loved attending sunrise services even though, any other Sunday morning, getting me out of bed was as much fun as having ten cavities filled without Novocaine. The first year my parents finally gave in and allowed me to go to a sunrise service (probably thinking I wouldn't wake up anyway, and that would be that), I jumped out of bed shouting, "He is risen! He is risen!" just to prove my point.

When we moved to Idaho, the sunrise services in our town were held on the canyon. Then, I was really glad I got out of bed that first Easter so many years ago.

3. Pantyhose and white pumps
When I was eight years old, I was allowed to wear pantyhose and a pair of white pumps for the first time on Easter Sunday. (My mother made an exception to her no-white-shoes-before-Memorial-Day rule only on Easter.) I also wore a pretty yellow dress with a white-striped skirt, and my mom and dad gave me a Precious Moments Bible which I still have to this day.

4. Easter egg hunts
My parents would take two cars to church. My mother would rush home to "meet" the Easter Bunny, and I (and eight years later, my brother) would come home and hunt Easter eggs. This elusive Easter Bunny would also hide small trinkets inside our house. I suppose it never occurs to kids that all of their favorite gift-receiving holidays consist of strange hybrid, mythical type creatures breaking into their homes and leaving toys behind, kind of like strangers handing out candy to children on the streets only magnified by ten. (Stranger Danger, anyone?) 

5. Family pictures 
Following the Easter egg hunts, we took a family photo. It was the only time my brother would wear something other than polyester basketball shorts and a T-shirt. And sometimes, my grandmother was visiting from Illinois. We would take several photos because that is how long it took to figure out the camera's self-timer, and my brother and I would groan and whine about wanting to eat our candy.

But today, I sure am glad we took those photographs.

 

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One Magical Program (RERUN FROM 3/24/12)

This blog post was originally published in March of 2012. While I am busy preparing for next week's spring musical, enjoy reading about this repost about last year's program. Hopefully, this year's will be just as successful.

Hello butcher paper backdrops and cardboard sets. This week was the 5th and 6th grade music program at my school. For those of you who do not work with 5th and 6th graders, let me explain something. The 5th and 6th grade music program is often the most challenging to organize. Try finding a presentation that includes singing, dancing, and dialogue and, at the same time, engages 180 pre-pubescent young people. Then try preventing those same young people from looking like their teeth are being pulled sans Novocaine the whole time they are performing. This is my job every spring.

The typical 5th and 6th grade program week involves several adults saying things like, "Sing louder! Smile! Slow down your dialogue! We can't understand you!"

And in my head, I am saying, "It won't happen. You don't think we've been working on that for the last eight weeks? They won't sing louder, smile, or slow down their dialogue. Something happens between ages nine and ten, and children wire their mouths shut when you actually want them to use their 'outside voices!' It's called 'Selective Lock-Jaw.'"

This year was different. I should have know when, earlier in the month, one of my 6th grade classes begged to forgo the game day they had earned and practice the play instead.

Oh, I was still pulling my hair out the week before the program, urging kids to learn their lines. I had to put understudies on two of the roles because some of the cast members were not adhering to their "responsibility contracts." I even had to cast an understudy for one of my understudies, and one girl had to learn a new part last weekend.

But this week, something almost magical happened, something I have never quite experienced in my decade of teaching in the public schools. The only thing that has ever come close was when I music directed a youth show at asemi-professional local theater company.

Rehearsals ran as expected. My 5th and 6th sound guys freaked out a little because the CD player kept shutting off and going into power save mode between numbers. We heard the introduction to "New York, New York" about seven times during our first rehearsal. The two boys soon figured out a system though, and miraculously, the correct songs played at the correct times. Problem solved.

One of my 5th grade stage managers spent the first two rehearsals at the prop table playing with the hats. Finally the 6th grade stage managers, fed up with this tomfoolery, marched the kid to me and reported his behavior. I told the 6th graders to stand guard and told the 5th grader if I heard any more complaints, I would replace him on the spot. And the 5th grader pulled it together. Second problem solved.

One of the 6th graders forgot to turn in his wireless mic. The funny thing is, I could still hear his voice in the gym speakers overhead, like one imagines hearing the (unchanged) voice of God from the clouds. I went running up and down the halls yelling out his name (the kid's name, not God's). Defeated, I returned to the gym. He was calmly wrapping his mic at the back of the gym, having apparently been there all along. Seeing me run out of the gym, he had started calling, "Mrs. Duggan, I'm right here!" Final problem solved.

Right before our last rehearsal, a 6th grader asked if he could give a speech at the end of the performance the next day.

"Only adults give the speeches," I told him. "Otherwise, we would hear 180 speeches."

I am still not sure what kind of speech he wanted to make, but at the end of our final rehearsal, he said into one of the microphones, "Mrs. Duggan, we thank you." And suddenly, there was a chorus of thank you's echoing from the risers.

Something weird was happening . . .

Program day was a magical experience. The kids remembered their lines, got to "places" on time, and sounded beautiful. The stage manager and sound operators worked quickly and diligently and kept everyone quiet in the backstage area. I stood in the middle of it all and occasionally pointed to something or someone, but honestly, they didn't really need me.

In between performances, I returned from my lunch break to find five or six kids sweeping the stage and gym floor. They weren't goofing around, despite the potential of a couple of these kids, and I hadn't asked them to spend their lunch recess cleaning the gym.

"We just want the stage to look nice for our play," they said.

It wasn't my show anymore. It was theirs.

After the program, I found some of the younger students waiting in the cafeteria line "firing" each other. One of the characters in the play was a rehearsal pianist-turned-Donald Trump wannabe who shouted, "You're fired!" at various cast members.

I guess this was a popular character because the next morning one of my 2nd graders said, "That guy kept firing people, but he wasn't supposed to!" Then he added, "I love-ded that program!"

Several of the 4th graders who weren't even in the program wrote me thank you notes, thanking me for letting them watch the show.

The 6th graders also thanked me for letting them be in the program when they passed me in the halls, as though I had given them a gift. I didn't have the heart to tell them, "It's my job. I don't have a choice. I have to let you be in the program whether I like it or not."

One of the adults in the building said, "I think several of these kids may decide go on with theater or choir as a direct result of this program."

Another adult put it this way, "Now they are going to get involved in drama and music in junior high instead of drugs and alcohol!" One can only hope.

"Are you relieved it's over?" others asked me.

Normally I would have said yes.

This time I said, "I think I might miss it."

After the decorations were off the walls, the risers folded, the platforms dismantled, the chairs stacked back on the racks, I carted several loads of cardboard and butcher paper skyscrapers out to my Hybrid, prepared to store them in my garage (and makeshift scene shop). I stopped for a moment and wiped away a couple of tears.

I was mourning the end of this children's program the way I would mourn closing night of my own favorite theatrical performances. And I haven't done that in a while.

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Dan Goes to Choir Festival

The other night, my husband, Dan, did his favorite thing in the whole world. He spent the evening with 200 elementary school kids.

Tuesday night was our district's elementary choir festival. As director of my school's choir, I was required to be there. Dan, an introverted software engineer, was not. But instead of playing video games at home all night, he opted to brave curly-haired girls and handsome boys in their newly-pressed white button-down shirts.

I put him in charge of handing out the kids' choir vests and videotaping the concert. Pretty soon, he was elected to run the houselights for the concert. He also sat next to my choir, on the opposite end. He was supposed to be a foreboding presence, intimidating the kids I couldn't reach quickly.

He called me, "Mrs. Duggan" in front of the kids. I, in turn, called him,"Mr. Duggan."

The kids looked at us like we were weirdos.

"We already know your first name, Mrs. Duggan."

"Do you really call each other Mr. and Mrs. Duggan?"

One student even asked Dan, "What is your first name?"

"Mister . . . " Dan responded.

At the end of the concert, Dan taught the kids how to hand in their vests neatly. In fact, he refused to take them unless they turned in the vests properly.

"You would make a good teacher," I observed.

After the performance, while I was chatting with other directors, Dan sat patiently on the other side of the auditorium, playing with the video camera.

I have noticed that most music teachers don't have spouses who work alongside them during their programs. I have forgotten what it was like to do all of this on my own. (There were a few years during the beginning of my teaching career when I was "Miss Turner" rather than "Mrs. Duggan.)

Maybe Dan and I are still in the honeymoon phase of our marriage (after nine years?). Perhaps I am just lucky. Regardless of the reason, I am happy for the help, especially at festival time.

Not too long ago, I heard that one of my out-of-town music teacher colleagues was getting a divorce. She felt her husband wasn't supportive enough. He felt she wasn't home enough.

"It's hard for our spouses to come to everything, especially when we're gone nights and weekends at performances, conferences, you know . . ." another music teacher colleague said in a separate conversation.

That night, I told Dan, "If you get burnt out helping me with my job, you have to tell me before it gets to that point."

"Okay," he said, in a way that led me to believe that he kind of liked herding 200 elementary-age kids around an auditorium.

In another week, Dan will be helping with my spring musical. I wonder what kinds of tasks I'll have for him on my honey-do list. He will probably be on a ladder, hanging decorations, due to my fear of heights.

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