Things you don’t want to hear your Doctor say, but which I have been told in the last 2 months.

I have a great deal of appreciation for doctors and nurses and all they do. Even dentists. My last couple of months, however, have been full of unexpected visits and interesting conversations. I hope you enjoy more than I did.

“When I put that filling in (1 and ½ years ago…) I made a mistake and didn’t go deep enough. That’s why you tooth is dying and you now need a root canal.”

(2^nd dentist visit on the same day to confirm) “Yup.”

(During the root canal) “We are pulling an unusual amount of puss out of this tooth. I’m surprised you weren’t in more pain than you were. Either that, or you are used to pain in your head.” (I didn’t realize I was given the option of the Spinal Tap pain scale, because, you know, 11 is louder than 10.)

(After the first root canal didn’t take away the pain) “We have about 1 in 100 patients react like this.”

(When they decided to redo the root canal with even more medication) “We do hundreds of these in this office in a year, and almost never does a patient have this problem.”

(Conversation with an ER nurse) “Are you feeling any better?” “No.” “Seriously?”

(Same ER nurse) “We are used to guys walking in here with your problem screaming in pain. I don’t know what to do with a guy who isn’t.”

(From the same ER nurse) “I gave you enough pain medication to ice an elephant.”

“You have two kidney stones.”

(From the ER Doc) “When you got here, you looked like crap. Pardon my language, but you looked awful.”

(From the Surgeon) “We’ll pull that stint out next week. Without anesthesia.”

(An exchange between nurses on my way to the operating room from pre-op)

Surgery nurse: “We are going to wheel you around the corner. You have been medicated, so we can’t let you walk.”

Nurse from around the corner: “Can your patient walk there? We have construction in the hallway and we can’t get the bed through.”

“He’s not authorized to walk.”

“We can’t get the bed through.”

After a short, pointed remark from the surgery nurse and a trip to the hallway, he returned to say, “We are going to have to walk you down the hallway.”

With him in front of me and another nurse behind me making sure my already undone gown didn’t float away in the breeze, we made our way single file past the construction workers.