One of the funniest things my body has ever put another human being through was the time I shattered a molar and needed it extracted while having Myasthenia Gravis.
For people unfamiliar: severe gMG means certain anesthetics and muscle-affecting medications can become a genuinely serious problem very quickly. In my case, local anesthetic injections like novocaine carried enough concern about bulbar involvement and respiratory complications that multiple oral surgeons basically reacted as though I had asked them to remove the tooth with a filthy butter knife in a field hospital at the height of the Crimean War.
So began the surreal process of trying to find a medical professional willing to pull a shattered molar with effectively no pain control whatsoever because everyone kept deciding this sounded "too cruel," which, to be fair, would be a not incorrect assessment for people who feel pain correctly. But pain is an old buddy of mine.
Eventually one surgeon agreed after an absolutely deranged waiver process that I suspect legally translated to: "Patient appears literate, informed, and perhaps spiritually unwell." The procedure itself then became complicated not just by the extraction but by the fact that MG also causes muscular fatigue, meaning we periodically had to stop because holding my mouth open for that long was exhausting the muscles themselves.
At which point, in what I considered a morale-boosting theatrical gesture, I cheerfully announced:
"Right! Getting the full Fantine treatment today, doctor." Silence. No recognition.
This man did not understand that I was making a Les Misérables joke while preparing for nineteenth-century dentistry conditions in the year of our Lord 2024.
And honestly that lack of shared love for Victor Hugo literature and for musical theatre hurt far more than the unmedicated tooth extraction itself ever could have.
I wrote about how gMG also spares me from cosmetic Botox eligibility and therefore from having "Mar-a-Lago Face" in my essay
"The Rest of Me May Be Dysfunctional, But My Face Still Mostly Works."
t.co/DHMCm7dE4n
