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Asthenophobia is a terrible thing to have when you need to get your wisdom teeth removed. Broadly, the term means a fear of lack of control, specifically it means a fear of anaesthetics. Both definitions apply to me.
They didn’t tell me I would black out. They didn’t tell me that the whole room would ripple as the cold in my veins crept closer to my heart. I had seconds to process that the anesthetist hadn’t really explained what the cocktail of drugs she’d just pumped into my arm would do.
I woke up and hour or so later, to some nurse I could barely recognize (but nonetheless didn’t like) smearing chapstick on my lips. My expression must have matched the intangible thoughts in my soup brain because my mom told me what I already knew the nurse was doing, and somehow that didn’t make the situation any less uncomfortable. The fact that I had been without control of myself for an unknown amount of time, in front of strangers, and that other people like this woman had been touching me, scared me.
I wish the dentist had told me more about the procedure. I wish the anesthesiologist had made more than a passing remark on how ‘it would feel like amnesia’.
And I wish they had given my teeth back.
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