What its like to faint in the dentist's chair...

I settled into the comfortable padded chair and made small talk with the dental hygienist. She tilted the chair back and sat behind me, picking at my teeth with one of her torture instruments. I was surprised; I actually felt pretty good, although I was expecting nausea due to my uber-sensitive pregnancy-inspired gag reflex. I took a deep breath, listened to the Jack Johnson on the radio, and gazed at the Bible quote on the wall.

(Sidenote: my dentist is a bible-thumper. All around the office, there are strategically placed biblical references and psalms, detailing the many versions of hell waiting for those of us who don't repent. It drives me crazy. Why do I go back? Well, there are just as many pictures of dogs. The dentist's own lab, Sadie, wanders at her leisure around the office, spreading dog hair on everything holy and sterile. It is hard for me to balance my dislike of the inappropriate attempts at religious brainwashing with my powerful approval of the irreverent presence of a dog in a medical office. So far I appear to be more swayed by the dog. I can ignore the Bibles liberally strewn about where the magazines should go.)

So, I'm reading the bible quote and I all of a sudden realize it's rather hot in the exam room. The window shade is up, so the sun is shining on me, and I'm thinking, "My GOD! I need some air! Someone get a fan!" Then Jack Johnson's voice starts to become slightly staticky and far away sounding. I wonder if the music is on the radio, or if the office just has a crummy stereo system. Then I begin to sweat.

Being a vet with a weak constitution, I am no stranger to the sensation of fainting. I once awoke flat-out on the floor of the surgery suite to a cartoonish under-side view of 2 veterinarians and 3 veterinary assistant grinning at me from above. Routinely I have to convince my brain that consciousness is actually an asset while performing a surgical procedure. I have learned to arrest the fainting process in mid-slump, and I'm pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.

So, I thought while reclined in the dentists' chair, "How odd that I am about to faint when I am nearly upside down with my legs elevated and head below heart...Isn't that the treatment for fainting?" I told the hygienist that I needed to sit up, that I was feeling light-headed. She raised me into a sitting position and turned to fill a cup with water. I watched her do this through a very long tunnel; she appeared back-lit and blurry, almost as though I was watching her through a kaleidoscope. Despite breathing deeply and consciously, the light at the end of the tunnel darkened, and I went blind. I heard the hygienist saying my name, and somehow managed to eek out a response that satisfied her that I wasn't dead yet. She told me to sit and get my bearings.

It took me about 20 minutes, 4 dixie cups of water, and 3 paper towels to sop sweat from my neck before I felt at all capable of standing. The baby (note the transition from fetus to baby; only a baby can kick this much!) was rolling around in my belly like a Mexican jumping bean, which only made the vertigo worse. I was amazed. Not only had my trusty anti-fainting techniques failed, but my head now felt like someone was whacking it repeatedly with a hammer. What the heck?

Of course, my solution to any sort of medical quandry is to go Googling. It pisses me off when my clients do it for their animals, but yet it is the first thing I do prior to calling my doctor. So, Dr. Google told me that dental chairs are known fainting triggers for pregnant women, because the weight of the uterus basically collapses the vena cava, which is the garden hose vein that returns blood from the lower extremities to the heart. So, basically the cardiovascular system starts flashing a red error message, and the brain shuts down to prevent total physiologic malfunction. The unfortunate thing is that, despite sitting up slightly, I was still probably reclined enough that my poor vena cava was acting like a hose with a kink, letting enough blood through for consciousness but barely.

Next time it happens, I'll know to get the heck off my back. And then I'll call in the dog for moral support, since the hygienist and God weren't particularly helpful.