July 1, 2005

You can have too much wisdom

By Stephanie Foo
Times Columnist

I am my own worst enemy.

Oh yes, it’s painfully true: Nobody is better at hurting me than me. No doubt we have all kicked ourselves after not studying for a test or saying something like, “Nice…uhh….mole!” to the cute boy in homeroom.

But upon the discovery of four small white points in the back of my mouth, the first feeling that bubbled to the surface was an overwhelming sense of betrayal.

How could my body do this to me? After I fed it all kinds of nice food, decorated it in the mornings and made it a point to get eight hours of sleep per night, it went and pushed up these four wisdom teeth on me. Before it had presented me with pimples, but this backstabbing was intolerable.

I was comforted with my friend’s accounts of the surgery, however. The process sounded very simple and benign. But after all, kids are kids and I turned to my surgeon for some real reassurance.

“Don’t eat six hours before the surgery or else the food in your stomach could get into your lungs while you’re unconscious and you could choke and die.”

He is such a nice man.

I entered the office shakily and was very nervous until I saw a girl about my age emerge from the back, followed by my surgical-scrubs-clad doctor. “She was a real trooper for her first time!” he proclaimed, smiling. “Oh, it wasn’t so bad at all!” the girl replied. It was very Norman Rockwell, very charming.

A trooper! He called her a trooper. Phooey! I was better than that kid. From that point I told myself that when I exited that room I wouldn’t just be a trooper. They’d bring me out and the surgeon would shake my dad’s hand and say, “You’ve got a fine young woman here, sir, a fiiiine young woman. She’s a real soldier, she is.”

So when they called my name I marched into the back and laid myself down on the operating table like I was the man. They strapped all my body parts down like I was in an asylum.

Then they brought out the gas mask. It was really cool and I was anxious to wear it so I could pretend I was Boba Fett or Darth Vader and practice my muffled impersonations, but maybe Darth Vader had a much more protruding nose because my flat Asian one couldn’t keep the mask on. They had to wrestle with it for five straight minutes.

I think doctors take a secret pleasure in taking the needle they’re going to stab you with and tapping it right in front of your face so you can see how huge it is. Why can’t they tap it somewhere else? Or tap it beforehand? Why do they have to tap it at all? Behind their surgical masks I bet they’re smiling and thinking, “Hee hee, you’re about to pee your pants, aren’t you?”

And the IV needle is a very large needle. My doctor went and tapped it in front of me and he actually had to ask me, “Why are you making that face?” because I was grimacing in absolute horror. He thought I was dying. But I had to stop. Because I was a trooper. And troopers don’t make awful dying faces before they even stick the needle in.

But he did stick it in and it wasn’t so bad. And I was even looking forward to the whole counting backwards to sleep bit. In case I died in surgery, I was going to go, “Ten…nine…eight…SEIZE THE DAY!...seven…” so I could have some awesome last words.

But my last words would have sucked because the doctor asked me, “How much do you weigh?” And I said, “100 pounds!” and blacked out.

I remember hallucinating a little about Greek women dancing in a vineyard, and waking up in a cloud on a bed in some mysterious room with a big craving for some falafel. At about this time I realized that the trooper kid had probably gotten her braces tightened, not had surgery, because they were going to need to carry me out to the car.

I howled for a mirror but when I looked in it and saw a bloody Jabba the Hutt lady in it, I gave it back to the nurse pretty quick. On the upside, I was amusing myself greatly by whacking myself in the face repeatedly because my entire jaw was numb and I couldn’t feel a thing.

Several penicillins, vicodins and motrins later, I was comfy in my bed and telling Bea, the editor of the Evergreen Times, “Yesh…yesh…column…I write column for joo.”

So in the end, I guess it turned out okay. I got a topic out of it, and I’m feeling better. But let me tell you, if that body of mine ever tries to punk one on me again…ugh! That Stephanie Foo…