On Friday, I had my first plastic surgery appointment. By then, my lip had really separated into two parts, and the nasty mass of dead flesh had been on my nerves for days. Ian later told me that he had been able to smell it from across the dinner table in the last two days.

The most I had been hoping for today was that Dr. Newman's resident (I knew I wouldn't be seeing the doctor himself today) would evaluate me in order for the doctor to decide how to proceed. However, the physician's assistant who examined me was quite concerned about the dead tissue. She feared that I might get an infection. She brought in a different doctor for a second opinion. He agreed that the dead flesh needed to go. They decided to page Dr. Newman, who was currently in Livonia (a suburb of Detroit), and that I should come back when he arrived.

When I got back to my office, I already had a voice mail from the assistant saying that I should come a little early so she could prep me to be all ready when Dr. Newman arrived. He had to catch a plane right after the surgery. I was pretty impressed - this guy was going to have to negotiate the nasty Friday afternoon traffic back to Ann Arbor, perform emergency surgery, and then negotiate even worse rush hour traffic to get to the airport. I hoped he was going somewhere nice!

When I returned to the clinic, the physician's assistant told me that Dr. Newman would cut out the dead tissue, but that he couldn't sew up the two parts of the lip. I agreed that I didn't see how he could do that - they were so far apart. She said it'd be four to six weeks before they'd be able to do anything - the lip needed to be healed before they could work on it.

I waited for awhile for the Dr. Newman's arrival. When he entered the room, he peered closely at me, as if to say, "I want to take a good look at the person whose situation necessitated me driving back from Livonia before having to catch a flight out of Detroit!". Dr. Newman was an older man, which I found comforting. This meant to me that he would know what he was doing. I'd feared that I'd get stuck with an inexperienced resident.

He was very friendly, and asked me "When did your lip start looking bad?" I thought the question was kind of funny, and answered "The moment it hit the pavement." He laughed. I don't think this was the answer he was looking for but he didn't probe any further. He took a quick look inside my mouth, and conferred with the physician's assistant about what they'd need to have handy to perform the surgery.

The first step, of course, was to numb the area with local anesthetic. I was not expecting this to be a big deal - they'd done the same in the E.R., and it had only hurt a little bit. So I wasn't at all prepared for the feeling of hornets continually releasing their venom into my mouth for several minutes. My heart rate shot up, I held my breath, and my entire body tensed with shock. A hypodermic needle to the gum had never felt so awful! My heart did not slow down for a very long time. I did not resume breathing for a long time.

When that procedure was over, I tapped my lip to find out whether it was numb, and I could feel the tapping, but also knew the lip was numb. I didn't know whether it'd be numb enough since I could feel the tapping. But once he began the operation, I couldn't feel a thing. He covered my entire face with a towel which had a cutout only around the mouth. He worked fast, and I could hear him instructing the assistant about which types of thread to fetch for the stitches. I felt him begin to sew, but there was no pain. After awhile, I realized that he'd been sewing for so long, that he might have been sewing the halves of the lip together. This would be great news for me!

Part of the lip may not have been numb enough, or maybe the anesthetic was wearing off, so the needle and thread tugging on it hurt, but I kept reminding myself of that theoretical guy with a land mine injury to the gut, and told myself I had no business complaining. I've always used that guy to tell myself that I could get through the comparatively minor pain I was feeling in situations like this.

When he was finished, I felt the lip and he had indeed sewn it up! I was elated! I could not have asked for a more wonderful gift today. I thanked him for his trouble, and knew I was in good hands. I hadn't seen what I looked like yet, but I didn't care. Then the news got even better - he wanted to see me again on Monday - none of this four to six weeks crap. That didn't necessarily mean that he would do anything on Monday, but at least he'd be on top of it.

He wrote out a prescription for an anti-biotic, and the physician's assistant told me to call immediately if I noticed any more dead flesh or any infection. I guess I could have called about the dead flesh earlier this week, but just hadn't known. I was so exuberant after the operation that I was joking around with the check-out clerk. She was as eager to get out of there as I was.

Once I was home, I knew I'd want to get that antibiotic prescription filled before I arrived at "church". I looked for it in my satchel, and much to my dismay and disbelief, I could not find it! I searched everywhere - pockets, wallet, satchel, but it was nowhere. I became very angry with myself. I called the clinic, but a recording said that the clinic was closed. I knew that I could not wait until next week to take the antibiotics. I figured that my best bet would be to go to the E.R. and ask them to write out another prescription. I thought there'd be some record of it in my on-line file.

After "church", I headed over to the hospital to take care of the prescription business. The whole process was relatively painless, although I couldn't remember the name of the antibiotic from my prescription, so ended up with a different medication. But I figured it would do the job, and I wouldn't be risking infection by my own negligence.

Back: First Round of Appointments