Deep breaths, they said. Deep breaths through the nose.
So I did that. Breath in, breath out. It took a while. I sat there, looking at the ceiling, breathing deeply.
Then I couldn’t feel my head. Just a great numbness. Like when you stand up real fast, and can’t see.
I closed my eyes. I can’t go like this, am I dying? Why are they talking about school? I force my eyes open. Nope, just the ceiling. I can’t feel my body.
My eyes are closing. No, I must stay awake. I’m not doing general anasthesia. Something’s wrong.
Now I see nothing. I have to shake my head, no. No no no.
The nurse puts her hand on my shoulder, is everything okay?
Wait, what gives?
I can move my hands. I can feel them. Look, I’m waving them around. Help! I can see! Don’t cut me! My mouth tastes terrible!
The black guy is back. Have I seen him before? He looks familiar, but I don’t remember from where. He says deep breaths through the nose. Okay.
The nice doctor says am I doing okay? I say okay. He says deep breaths through the nose. I say okay.
Now they’re over me, looking in my mouth. What are they doing? Is it done? What happened? They say open wide. Okay.
There’s air leaking in my mask. I push it on. But I still see. They give some shots in the mouth. That hurts, but then nothing. I can’t see the doctor.
Now they’re back. I’m breathing deeply, but I can still feel. He says open my mouth. Okay, fine. Now there’s a cracking noise, that’s weird. His hand is moving back and forth.
Weird.
Crack.
I guess that’s my tooth. I can’t feel a thing, but the cracking is a weird noise. It’s like wood. A dense one, like maybe oak? I only know wood through Minecraft. Certainly not balsa.
He does the other one. That takes longer, I wonder why.
Now they say take it off. They do. Where did the X-ray go? It was on the wall. Someone says what’s the time? It’s 2:13. I say, it took 13 minutes? Wow! I start shaking.
They say, here’s some gauze. Bite hard. I bite hard. They give me some things. Hey, it’s my teeth in a bag. I’m shaking too hard. I’m like an old person. They say how are you? I say okay, I can’t feel my tongue. I can feel my hand, look, I can touch it.
And look, now I can stand. My head hurts when I swallow. That’s okay, though.
Now I’m at home. My cat sits on my lap. That’s okay with me.
