Women are from Venus. Tuesday July 20, 2010

There is a reason why God decided that women will be the sex to bear children. It is so simple. We women have a pain threshold that no man could ever match. I think I read somewhere that if it were up to men to bring children into the world; the human race would die out within a few generations. Today was a case in point.

Both of our children have to have their wisdom teeth removed. Charles at 18 is about the right age and Emma at 15, is totally ahead of the game – but then she always has been.

Now that we are here in Brazil, I wanted to be the “nursing” mum, so rather than them have it done in the United States, I thought it would be best all round if it were done here and I could look after them post operatively and do the “mummy” thing.

A new friend here had raved about her dentist and so a few phone calls later, we had a recommendation for an oral surgeon. Not sure that our dentist in the United States was totally comfortable with the idea of us doing this but as long as the teeth were removed…. “Whatever”.


So a couple of weeks ago we went for our pre op consultation. This in itself was an experience. Given that my Portuguese is still pretty basic and her English ran to about 10 words we actually communicated pretty well. Thank goodness that words like “anesthetic,” “allergies” and “analgesic” translate so easily.

So the appointments were set for this morning. I checked with Marcelo, “how long to get from the house to the dentist?” He advised about an hour allowing for traffic. I then added on 15 minutes but forgot that he had already added on 15 minutes so we were 30 minutes early.

The dentist was quite clearly relived to see that in all the communication, we had arrived on the right day at the right time. I also showed her the medications she had prescribed and she was also relieved to see that the medications to be taken “one hour before surgery” had been ingested.

But back to the original point.

When asked “who is going first?” Emma put up her hand. No doubt she was game. She went in and when gestured by the surgeon to sit behind her in the operating surgery, I gracefully declined. My own blood I can cope with, someone else’s I am not too good.

Fifty minutes later, she emerged. Actually the nurse emerged first with a thumbs up –all was fine. Emma came out with her newly extracted teeth in a tiny plastic yellow handbag, clutching an ice pack to her face. She proclaimed that it "wasn’t as bad as she thought," and sat down to read the book she had brought with her

Phew – I thought.

So in went Charles. I heard the howls of pain and after a few minutes couldn’t bear it and so went into the surgery to see the surgeon with only the anesthetic in hand. Seems that the pre anesthetic wasn’t doing its stuff and Charles was in pain from the needle. I took a deep breath and went back outside. Every ten minutes that passed without a howl from Charles was a bonus. It got to a point where I would gladly have traded places with him to relieve him of the pain and discomfort.

So we made it home. Painkillers every four hours. Charles is counting the minutes until the next one. He is lying on the sofa, milking the pain for all it is worth. Emma’s recall is that it wasn’t too bad. Charles wants us to know every gory detail. Both have swollen mouths, discomfort and the thought that in a few month’s time they will be doing this all over again.

Charles is terrified at the thought.

Emma’s mantra is “suck it up”.

I rest my case. Women really are from Venus. Men really are from Mars