Book eleven: Fangs But No Fangs

Fangs But No Fangs* (2006)
Kathy Love

Rating: 2.5/5

I didn’t like this as much as I Only Have Fangs For You (the third book in the series). There was nothing really wrong with it – I just didn’t like the main character as much. They just weren’t as funny, I guess.

The whole “woe-is-me-I’m-a-bad-vampire” thing is hard to pull off with any real conviction. I guess Love didn’t do too badly here, I just found the main characters a bit boring. And did I mention not as funny?

Or maybe I’m just not in the mood to laugh. Did I mention it hurts to smile? Stupid teeth. Or I guess place where teeth used to be**.

The second half of the book was a bit of a yawn. Not that much actually happened. And I’ve found in this series that Love tends to fall into the old cliché of rushing the ending. Like all those romance novels where they confess their feelings on the last page, and the last line is their first kiss.

Boring.

I want to know what happens after that. What about all the roadblocks that have been put in front of them for the last 200 plus pages? How was all that drama resolved?

This isn’t that bad, I just found a few things were rushed in the end, that were also rushed in the end of the first book. It was less so in the third for obvious reasons. Better not ruin the ending.

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* I actually finished reading this on the Saturday, 17/3.

** You know what’s worse than having to have surgery? Having to get up while it’s still dark to go to the hospital for said surgery.

The day of the removal of my wisdom dawned while I was already up and getting ready to go. The strangest thing about the whole experience was who un-freaked out I was.

I was extremely panicky about the whole thing until about 11.30 the night before. Its like some kind of switch flicked in my head that decided it would just be easier if I didn’t care about it. It was like being in shock. I knew that I was scared, that I was worried, that I really didn’t want to do it. I just didn’t feel anything about it.

Off I traipsed to the hospital. By the time we arrived the sun was actually up. Which was nice.

I had never been to a hospital for any other purpose than visiting someone, so the whole experience of walking up to the reception counter thing and it being my name on forms was extremely weird.

Apparently I had messed up my consent form and hadn’t agreed to a few things. I was that out of it, I actually had to get the receptionist to tell me what my answers would be (Yes, I agree to a blood transfusion. Yes, the procedure had been explained to me by my doctor.) I just remember standing there, looking at the page and the whole thing being kind of blurry. I mean I could tell there were words on the page, I just couldn’t actually tell you what they meant. Kind of like hieroglyphs or something.

It was then time to head off to the day surgery section. I was lucky enough to be first on the list or whatever, so I didn’t have to wait around. Which was a very, very good thing. I am not good at waiting. Waiting for me just tends to lead to stressing.

They then showed me to the “Patient Interview Room.” I found it very amusing that all the rooms they take you to had nice names like this. Very official like. I then had my temperature and blood pressure taken, and was asked for the first of a million times what procedure I was having done. (Wisdom teeth. Four.)

Hospitals seem to have this whole military like organisation going on. The nurse that was checking me in or whatever the hell she was doing, had this whole system of doing everything. It all felt very efficient and the part of me that loves making a list found this extremely comforting.

I was then taken to the “Patient Receiving Room,” or something, where I had to use this special mouth wash, change into the gown thingy, and slather lanolin all over my mouth. The nurse then came back and put these vicious drops down my nose. Five minutes later I was still gagging on the fumes. I don’t think my sinuses have ever been that cleared out.

Then all these doctors and nurses traipsed through asking me questions (apparently you have to give your full name when they ask you your name, just your first and last will not do). I managed to keep it together rather well until the anaesthesiologist showed up. I somehow ended up sobbing “I don’t like needles!” and hoped that he would go away.

The weirdness thing was that they make you walk from the “Patient Receiving Room” or whatever it was called into the theatre. I remember standing in the door way of this big room with this bed in the middle surrounded by equipment and all these people milling about inside, and wondering if I ran down the hallway would they come after me.

Unfortunately, one of the nurses noticed me hovering there and dragged me towards the bed. I kept repeating my “I don’t like needles” spiel in the hope that someone would listen. They just slapped a blood pressure monitor on me. I used to hate getting that done, but I think I’m almost over it now.

Then they put one of those things that cut your circulation off. This one looked like a left over belt from some bodies tragic 80s wardrobe. Did someone in hospital equipment design really think that a swirl of fluoro colours would really make me feel better about the fact that it was cutting into my arm and freaking me out?

Suddenly, in some kind of pre-choreographed move, everyone in the room who had up until this stage been ignoring me, descended upon me. One guy was holding down my left arm, while the anaesthesiologist painted some kind of clear liquid on the back of my hand. It was cold and watery, and much to my disappointment, wasn’t numbing in any way. The anaesthesiologist nurse then started putting stuff on me. First, a pulse monitor on my finger, then without even pausing to ask she shoved her hand down the front of my gown and stuck the heart monitors on. I found it very funny later, that she asked before she put the pulse monitor on, but not that. Yeah, ‘cause touching my hand was more of an invasion of privacy.

My sister had her wisdom teeth taken out at the same hospital, and she had managed to get some kind of gas given to her to make her not care about her needle phobia before the needle was produced. No such luck for me.

“What do you do for a living?” the anaesthesiologist asked. Fuck, I thought, the last thing I want to talk about right now is work. I answered anyway. He kept rubbing whatever it was on the back of my hand and examining it like it was some kind of complicated puzzle. I guess he was looking for a vein.

Now, I have to admit I have a problem. Probably worse than the whole needle phobia. Whenever I get nervous, I can’t sit still. I guess you could say that I have a nervous wiggling habit. I guess this is a drawback when you are trying to stab someone with a needle in a particular spot. My bad.

Anyway, I managed to stay still (admittedly after some coaxing) and he slid the needle in. Honestly, it was the least painful injection I have ever had. But the icy pain of whatever they were pumping into me, is possibly the worst sensation I have ever experienced. It was while I had started up wiggling again to try and distract myself from this, that I realised the oral surgeon was now there.

“You have to keep still,” he reminded me.

“Tell me something,” I said, trying to stop wiggling.

“I thought we had already explained everything to you,” he said, sounding concerned.

“No,” I snapped. “Tell me a story.” I kept wiggling. “Distract me,” I demeaned.

“Oh,” he looked thoughtful. “Would you like to talk about politics?”
“No,” I whined.

“Oh, I thought Howard would put you to sleep.” Everyone in theatre laughing. Me looking very unimpressed.

“Once I had this patient,” he began dutifully, around this time I noticed the feeling in my hand had unfortunately spread, I tried to ignore this and concentrate on the story, “who had only ever had teeth extracted under general. She came into the surgery and I gave her the local anaesthesia. About twenty minutes later she asked me when she was going to go to sleep…”

“Hey, I feel sleepy,” I said as what he was saying made me realise the cold feeling had changed. “Am I supposed to feel sleepy?”

And that is all I remember until I woke up in recovery. The nurse was putting on an oxygen mask, and saying something to me. I woke up what must have been a little while later, and he was standing there again.

“What time is it?” I mumbled through all the cotton wool packed in my mouth.

“10.45”

“Can I go home now?” I asked, noticing that my head was wrapped in some kind of ice pack contraption. Very comfy.

“Not yet,” he said, smiling. “I just have to take your blood pressure twice more and then we’ll move you.”

I then realised that I didn’t so much mind the whole automated blood pressure thing. My new hatred was for the pulse thingy. How awful is it being able to hear your own pulse? It freaked me out well and truly. Especially the fact that the more I concentrated on it, the more it speed up and the more I freaked out.

Luckily, after 15 minutes the nice nurse came back and took it off. I then got moved over to the other side of the room, where I was told to rest until I could go home. They also took the blood pressure cuff off, which was very good news.

The weirdness thing is that I wasn’t tired. I think generally people are really sleepy after they come out, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. I’m not sure if it was because I was stuck on my back (I can never get to sleep that way) or if I didn’t want to go back to sleep in case they made me stay longer.

Thankfully they took all the stuff out of my mouth after about half an hour. This was good, because all the packing was causing a lot of pressure, which was pretty painful. After that, they took out the drip (which I had been carefully avoiding noticing) and I was allowed to get dressed.

Its all a bit of a blur really, but I remember another nurse coming and taking me back out into the main part. I got to walk again, which really goes against all those movie/t.v. clichés of having to use a wheelchair.

“Is someone coming for you?” asked the new nurse, who was leading me by the arm.

“Yes, my mum,” I mumbled. As we were passing by the waiting room I saw her, so I stopped and pointed, “there’s my mum,” I mumbled again. I think I may have been a bit dopy and out of it by this stage.

They took me back into the “Patient Interview Room” where I had to wait for a few minutes until the surgeon came and talked to me.

Apparently, it was more ‘extensive’ then they had first thought, but they were able to get all the teeth and roots and everything (which is a good thing, because I have since learned that they can decided which you are under that they will leave half of it there and come back later). He then very nicely gave me a medical certificate which means I don’t have to go to work for a week and one day.

I then kind of remember stumbling out to the car, and catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the sun shade. My lips were covered in an attractive mix of lanolin and blood, with bits of cotton wool stuck to it for accent. My jaw was already swelling and I looked like I was about to pass out.

For the next few days I just laid around, occasionally taking pain killers, reading and rinsing my mouth out with antiseptic. I figured out a nifty way of laying in bed which meant I could lay on my side, while not having any contact between my jaw and the pillow. Unfortunately, this was quite painful for my poor neck, but it was the only way I could get to sleep for longer than an hour.

The first day after, I very much resembled on of those Plastic Surgery Gone Wrong stories: I had two black eyes, a swollen jaw and my bottom lip was about three times its normal size. I also had bruises along my hair line, my arm and back. I figure they must have dragged me up the bed while I was unconscious? Very strange.

Oh, and it hurts to smile because it pulls the stitches that I’m pretty sure are in my cheek. Great.

I am now very much sick of pureed everything, and am looking forward to being able to chew – and smile – again.