At Least the Drugs Are Good

When I got my wisdom teeth pulled, I was not knocked out, I was given nitrous oxide – the gas. This was the first time I had ever been given the gas and I was told the gas was… enjoyable. Sitting in the chair, the nurse put what looked like a fake pig’s nose with tubes on either side over my nose and told me to breath normal and she left the room. As soon as her white Ked clad feet were out of sight, I started inhaling as if my life depended on it. Deep deep breathes. The room got fuzzy, my body was tingly and I was feeling… good. By the time the nurse got back in the room I am pretty sure I had a goofy smile on my face and I wouldn’t be surprised if my eyes were half closed.

I was wearing my college sweatshirt – which is known for its school of dentistry – and the nurse started asking me about what I was studying and how I was doing and basically all the things you don’t want to talk about as nitrous is pumping through your body. So I turned to the nurse and I said, “You’re ruining this for me.” And she smiled, patted me on the shoulder and responded, “Honey, that’s the point.” At least for a while there, the drugs were good.

While I was in the hospital I had discovered that I didn’t like Vicodin – it made me sick. So some doctor decided to send me home with 2 separate doses of Oxycontin. Yeah. I was to take a 20mg pill twice daily and a 5mg pill every 4 hours as needed.

And they were needed. I can see why people get addicted to pain pills. I wasn’t crushing and snorting them, so I wasn’t getting high or anything, I took them as instructed. And they just made everything… okay. They made everything… normal. They made everything… not hurt. And they made me sleepy.

I was taking a slew of other pills as well, and I will later find out that the pain pills masked the side effects from the other drugs. Now, I am not a closet pill popper and I am not addicted to pain pills (anymore – but we’ll save that for a future post), but I can certainly see how someone can become addicted to these things.

And sure there were side effects from the pain pills. I wasn’t gaining weight, but I wasn’t losing weight either – and I was barely eating, so theoretically I should have lost weight. And some other side effects I am sure you do not want to hear about. So there was a downside to them. But the good far outweighed the bad.

So just like being stuck in the dentist chair about to get a few teeth ripped out of their sockets, I was stuck in my house, spending my days either watching TV or sleeping – but hey, at least the drugs were good.