And frankly, with the amount of blood I lost, I really don’t want to know…

This past week, I had some pretty invasive dental surgery that I flippantly cancelled to go on the 100 Mile Trek in April.

It was under the florescent lights, scalpel on the tray and syringe full of chemicals to freeze my gums that I admitted to the doctor why I bailed on the first surgery and that it was indeed, not an emergency as I had originally said over the phone.

He laughed. “You will not have a problem bouncing back from this then!”

“Why?” I asked, the pill I had taken early to sedate me clearly kicking in.

“I am a runner myself. Do you ever purposefully take a harder route, or pushed through something just because it will help on race day?”

I thought of a recent run where my shoe wasn’t fitting properly and my entire leg went numb. I cheerfully informed my running mate that as long as I could move forward, I wasn’t going to stop.

And then there was the other time when I ate an apple and drank a diet coke not expecting to run. That was gastro-pain to the highest degree, but bring on any race situation and I am ready!

“Mhmmm” I agreed, my mouth stuffed with gauze at this point.

The surgery was about 2 hours long and I left, joking with the receptionist, meeting an astonished mother in the waiting room. She had laid the car seat down with a pillow awaiting a sedated and barely functioning me.

Instead…”I am starving! Let’s go for frozen yogurt!”

The last couple days have been a vacation for me. I lounged by the pool, drinking iced coffee and lemon mint tea, swimming when it got too warm, and watching tv to cool down. I logged a large number of hours for work and got ahead for the next week. Other than the pain and whole not eating thing, it has been actually quite amazing.

I looked forward to this surgery as a vacation and it was a vacation for me. Even though many of my friends in the dental industry clucked their tongues and told me they would spare me the details.

It isn’t that I am super tolerant to all types of pain. I think it all boils down to the fact that I was expecting I would have an awesome surgery recovery.

I have been shocked over and over again at the difference your outlook on a situation is.

If I had dreaded the surgery, went online and researched exactly what happened, I am sure I would be much more down and out. As it happens, I still have no idea what they did exactly, and quite frankly, with the amount of blood I lost, I really don’t want to know.

On that lovely note, I wish you all a wonderful weekend full of adventures that could have been ordeals.

As for me, I am hitting the ground running. If I get burnt out in a couple months, I have a looming surgery for my wisdom teeth.

(May it be noted that I included no post surgery pics [You are welcome] and I didn’t title this Surgery and Sadism even though I kind of wanted to. You are welcome again.)