“How are you feeling?” The bright lights blinded me and the chilly air numbed my tense skin. A nurse hovered over me, searching my face for the response that my lips could barely speak. Her nose and mouth were covered with a pale blue mask, clean and frightening. My cloudy mind perceived her as an alien ready to carefully attack. The words “I’m okay” somehow fell out of my mouth. I couldn’t hear myself; with my numb lips impairing my speech and my snowstorm of thoughts, I decided that my own silence was necessary. A gray-haired and gray-eyed doctor was now hunched over me too, his face uncomfortably close to mine. With painful plastic propping my jaw open, I felt pressure in the back of my mouth. I pictured my wisdom teeth safely tucked away …show more content…
I wished my mind was anywhere but that horrendously small, bright room. The laughing gas skewed my perception, but not enough to deter the cringe-worthy smell of the doctor’s clean rubber gloves and the classic medicinal scent of rubbing alcohol from entering my nose. I was painfully aware of the lack of physical sensation. I understood that his use of the shiny metal instruments was hurting me, yet I felt nothing. Suddenly, everything intensified. The doctor’s hand twisted forcefully against my jaw as my abdomen muscles tensed fiercely due to my fear and brutal comprehension. The abhorrent noise was deafening. Nothing compares to the grinding crunch of teeth as a stranger wrestles pliers into a …show more content…
Once I thought I saw my own reflection in the glass of the doctor’s glasses, my brown eyes wide and bulging with anxiety. I saw menacing metal forceps pull pink flesh from my mouth, and eventually I saw bony blood-covered tooth. I saw splashes of water, and black thread for the stitches. However, these images were unclear, like dim headlights illuminating thick fog. “How are you doing? We’re almost there,” the nurse reassured. I did not perceive her comfort as relief; instead it pulled me out of my tiny world of partial reality where my consciousness was hiding like a child playing hide and seek. The icy room tickled my skin, creating more discomfort. In efforts to relax, I began to count the ceiling tiles; they were squares of white with blue flecks like tiny splatters of impurity. I couldn’t keep count. I moved my eyes without moving my head; I saw the thick air and the dark blue fabric of the nurses’ scrubs. Due to my lack of previous response, the nurse spoke again. “How do you feel?” she repeated in her honeyed voice. My lips and tongue felt as huge and heavy as bowling balls, and my eyes contained tears, and my head was spinning, and the chaos felt like bricks squashing every inch of