10:32 AM:
Drilling, grinding, sawdust coats my tongue. i am watching a film – a monochrome mouth moves in silence. a man shouts through the static, his words foreign, unintelligible. the reel flickers. barbed ribbons of cornflower blue obscure the scene, coiling around cranes and metal hooks, colliding with rubber-gloved hands, cutting between construction men in blue. is this show… interactive? i’m in the viewing room, on the table. back and forth and back again.
10:33 AM:
The drill closes in. i am concrete: jaw locked, limbs tethered to the table. unable to move or breathe. unable to scream or flail or convince the construction men i am still alive. an entire orchestra of stars shine above me, humming a metallic shrill and showering me inan ostentatious sterilized haze. the conductor calls, “instruments sterilized… bone saw….” screeching. more shrilling. a sudden stabbing sensation, a teeming mouthful of metallic crimson. i flinch – this band sucks. i smack the cold leather below me; the curtains close on cue.
8:29 AM:
“No allergies to medication? No food since 12 AM? OK, good… Well, I recommend a Vidocin waiver… She’ll have some soren— no? Fine. Insurance card, please.”
I sink back into a tattered cloth chair, gaze fixed on a 1980s Wheel of Fortune rerun. Between Sajak’s comb-over, the wooden TV stand swelling with matted wires, and the stiff faux cactus in the corner, I feel like I've fallen into some neon-crazed, cobwebbed wrinkle of time. Mom offers the card and sits beside me, muttering under her breath as she scribbles a second, third, fourth signature on various forms.
8:47 AM:
I take shallow breaths, clammy hands trembling as I scan the waiting room.
Phrase: Five Words, 21 Letters
W A _ I N G _ P F R O M A _ A D D R _ A M “Ava, come follow me.”
How fitting. I walk toward the nurse and exhale as Sajak’s laugh and the dense smell of mildew dwindle into oblivion. Soon, I’ll be dreaming, then delirious with a mouthful of gauze.
Soon – it’ll all be over.
9:00 AM:
The door creaks. A man in starch white enters – his tall, refined frame harsh amid cartoonish bunnies and fields of flowers sketched on the walls. His smile is courteous, if stiff.
“Morning, Ava. I hear you’re our wisdom teeth case today. Junior in high school?”
Still scanning the sallow sunflowers behind him, I nod: “Yeah… starting college visits soon.”
“Big milestone! License too, then?” He stretches into some latex gloves with such vehemence I wince.
“Hopefully. I keep failing the parallel park.”
“Ah, double freedom,” he retorts, voice now muffled behind a creased blue mask, “It’ll come.”
I hesitate, then: “Um – one thing. I’m a natural redhead, and I read we sometimes need more anesthesia? I think I do, after all the cavities and root canals I’ve been half-numbed for.” I smile sheepishly, tracking cracks in the tiles beneath my swinging legs. “I don’t want to feel a thing.”
More amused than concerned, he snickers; “You want the good stuff, huh? Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
A feverish flush overtakes me, knuckles whitening as my fresh French manicure claws into the armrests. I purse my lips to nothing but the echo of crinkling paper and suffocating smell of antiseptic; the door slams before I can mumble another word.
9:05 AM:
The room is heavier now – harsher. Even the fluorescent overheads seem fiercer, like electrified clouds infested with hail, enshrouded with an acute sense of dread. I half-expect the bunnies to flee the fields and burrow somewhere warmer, somewhere sheltered from the commotion.
The storm brews swifter as I look down to two cold hands – mottled with bruises and blue veins like marble – still fastened to the vinyl-covered armchairs. I was Rose in The Titanic: the bitter Atlantic circled on all sides, but by God, I would hold on to that drifting wood, that stiff vinyl. If this room was a hailstorm, these armrests were my wreckage: a connection to the concrete, to solid land – a lifeline averting an ocean of fear from swallowing me whole.
“They’re professionals,” I reassure myself, “trained doctors who do this all the time. I’ll be OK.”
I’d identified five items I could see (bunnies, sunflowers, Purell hand sanitizer mounted to the wall, some knives and hooks on a steel, cafeteria-esque dish – the scariest school lunch you’ve ever seen) and two of four items I could touch (the torn sleeves of an old, moth-eaten sweater and the vinyl film on the armrests, of course) when a nurse knocks.
She heads for the Purell and asks for an arm. I feel a quick prick, intentionally averting my eyes from the needle to resume the senses’ ritual (two more items to touch… could I fiddle with the IV line? brush the ribbed adhesive at the insertion site? no, that’d be weird).
She smiles, gaze flickering to my still-trembling hands, “This’ll calm you down a little, sweetie, OK?” I offer a grateful nod.
9:10 AM:
28. In five minutes, I’d watched the monitor sink from 102 to 83 to 65 (Goldilocks’ zone, breath looser and mind mellower) to the headache-inducing 40, mind-bending 34 (when the bunnies stirred and a breeze made the sunflowers dance – ears smothered in the sound of a million little teeth munching on grass), further and further down until 28 BPM.
At 28, neon snow bathes the bunnies, the room an old screen obscured in static. I envision the cactus, the Wheel! of! Fortune! theme, a crinkled People magazine (June 2000 edition, Jennifer Aniston on the cover) and mourn the naiveté of 30 minutes earlier. The tiles teeter as the room tornadoes around me; I seize an armchair with such force the whole chair rocks. Screw Rose, I am Jack: watching myself drown from the hail-ridden clouds above. I sob in slow-motion as my frostbitten hands unfetter from the armrests – Jack’s wooden door unreachable. I am desolate. I am defenseless from fate.
A handheld mirror lies slanted on the counter beside me. I search its reflection for what seems like hours. I search this ashen face I once knew for some shred of life – a sniffle of the nose, a curl of the mouth – but to no avail. For a second, I wonder if I’ll die in the smeared reflection: a finale akin only to Narcissus’. After all, 28 isn’t so far from flatlined.
Then, 28 climbs back to 33, 34, 42, the sacred 65. I’m not sure what time it is now – or whether it’s been hours, weeks, decades, seconds. I sure as hell am not calmer, though.
9:12 AM:
The nurse returns. I ask her the time, what’s in the IV, “will I be under soon?”, each word clear and well-articulated. She’s startled – horrified: this, apparently, was not the desired result.
“Wow! I’ve never seen someone so lucid on Midazolam. I– I must’ve halved the dose somehow.”
Before I can remind her I’m less reactive to sedatives – before I can tell that snobbish doctor I told you so – she rushes over.
“Well, I guarantee this one will work. You’ll be knocked until it’s time for home and ice cream.” She hastily injects another needle, “Count from ten for me.” 10… 9… 8… 7…. Curtains close.
A POST-OP REPORT: Recorded 10/02/2022, 11:51 AM EST
Patient Ava J. Satterthwaite, 16F, experienced intraoperative awareness and partial temporary paralyzation during wisdom teeth extraction. At 10:32 AM, Dr. Smith [real name omitted] observed REM, increased heart rate, breathing rate, and sweating. Additional anaesthesia was administered at 10:33 AM. Prior to operation, patient expressed concern of a potential need for additional anesthesia. Patient reacted unusually to pre-operative conscious sedation, appearing tense and alert rather than lethargic. Patient was administered a typical dose of anesthesia for her size and exhibited anticipated reaction in due time. There is no explanation as to why this dose was not effective throughout the procedure, but patient has not mentioned recollection of said episode – we do not intend to inform her or her mother, to ensure smooth mental recovery post-procedure.
Patient exhibited minimal post-procedure reaction, displaying an immediate spatial awareness and producing well-articulated speech. Patient refused a wheelchair and walked to car without swaying or difficulty… indicating provided anesthetic dose may have been insufficient. Quick metabolization of anesthesia was recorded on her chart for future reference.
NOV 05, 2022 | 3:02 AM:
I am thrust awake, rattled for the third time this week with the acute sensation of suffocation. I feel smooth silk bedsheets crowded in clusters between my clammy hands and exhale. It’s 30℉ outside – bedroom window adorned in chromatic streaks of snowflakes and steam – but I am sweltered. A dense bead falls from my drenched forehead onto the satin. I drink water and stare into the darkness until my shallow breath has thickened. I’ve been buried alive. Again.
This ritual started somewhere around mid-October. Initially, I attributed the nightmares to the stacks of wool and fleece and fur I practically drowned myself in every night. So, I switched to silk. For a week, I dozed under one thin linen blanket to the cadence of chattering teeth, waking still at 3AM, smothered, violently shivering. Sometime close to Halloween – when the evening’s installation featured a cornflower blue man and two matted bunnies – I connected the dots. I have lived in fear of doctors since: terrified to miss a stair, catch a cold, drink too much soda – terrified to live.
Sole Magazine