Elephant Man

Last weekend Jed had his wisdom teeth out. A regular routine procedure, except for Jed. He contracted elephant man disease and had to go the ER. On Friday he had them out, on Saturday he started to swell, and by 2:00 am Monday morning he could barely see out of his right eye and his temple was protruding. So, I called his Dr. and he said he didn’t know what was wrong, and we could go the ER at UMC. After waiting around for almost two hours, contracting who knows what other kinds of diseases in the holding area/waiting room, finally Jed got to go back to some dark, scary place where wife’s are not permitted. I suspect it is because it is a university hospital and they want to perform experiments without witnesses. What I saw and witnessed in the waiting room however, should also have been shielded from me. A hooker with a hole in her foot from someone’s stiletto, a homeless man sleeping holding purple lilacs (I could write a whole book on the symbolism), a mom throwing things and stomping her feet, a lady talking to her self and countless other personages wrapped in cloaks with backpacks. Of course there was also this totally OCD pregnant lady who kept getting out hand sanitizer and weeping. I don’t know who let her out.
Anyway, I finally got to go back and see Jed and they still hadn’t given him anything for the pain. Eventually after they saw Jed eyeing the needles himself, they gave him some morphine, told him they didn’t know what was wrong and that a c/t scan should fix everything. Thankfully, about this time Jed’s oral surgeon got back a hold of me and came to the rescue. He bossed those ER nurses around and had an x-ray, meds and ritual needle stabbing done all in about an hour, with prescriptions! I am amazed that any oral surgeon would come into an ER to take care of a patient on Labor day and answer phone calls at 3:00 am! We never were given an absolute diagnosis but it must have been an infection because after about 24 hours of antibiotics the swelling finally went down a little. I think at this point, (Friday) he may even be off the pain pills.

On a lighter note, I have to mention my favorite Jed quotes from the ride home after the procedure. Keep in mind Jed is crazy when he is woken up minus anesthesia, now picture him waking up with all that lovely stuff they give you when you have your wisdom teeth out.
“Everyone is driving so fast. I feel like I came on a rocket ship.”
“I think you should let me drive. I can still drive better than you.” When I wouldn’t let him drive he drove with his own steering wheel and couldn’t figure out why his steering wheel wouldn’t let him change lanes. This made him a little angry.
“When I get home I’m doing yard work.”
“When I get home we’re going wakeboarding.”
“Joshlyn-we should have taken one of those tanks. I love gas!”
“Go back, lets get one of those tanks.”
He also attempted to put on chapstick and couldn’t quite connect the lines to the dot, if you know what I mean. This made us both laugh so hard I started crying.