Ah, the smell of a brand new blog! Like fresh notebooks at the end of August or coffee gurgling on the pot. Sweet birthday cake. Loud kazoos signaling a new year. The thrilling leap! The stores of potential. That’s me above, mid-grin, likely praying for the will to continue writing.
I made a similar venture into blogging two years ago. I’d just returned from my first shadowing experience in the oral surgery department. It was a minor, uncomplicated surgery (I know that now), but it was the first time I had ever laid eyes on real live alveolar bone (!!). I wrote a single post, titled “Resection,” where I described what I did not yet know was an unremarkable find:
The bone underneath the gums – termed alveolar bone – surprised me. I’d never seen it exposed in space on a living, breathing patient, someone ready to go home and have lukewarm soup later per our instructions.
The bone resembles those chalky candy cigarettes we’d puff in the cold air as kids. It’s perforated like a wafer, saturated with pockets of blood. The word “gum” always conjured jelly, pinks, and shapelessness. On the pale cadavers we’d sliced in lab, the bone was hard white. Dead bone. Closer to plastic Halloween skeletons than anything else, so it didn’t prepare us. Living bone is wild white-red, patterned, honeycombed. Even after we clean it with our sharp tools and irrigate with saline, it retains a defiant glisten.
The pieces we remove – bone, tooth, tissue – are deposited on a metal tray. The patient is numb while our gloved hands touch and chisel. They’re likely thinking when they’ll text the person picking them up. They are relieved to lose a painful tooth. Or they are paralyzed with the impending loss. Most close their eyes. Some grip the chair. All of them – when we are done – ask through a mouthful of gauze, “Can I see it?”
Last week, I completed my first surgical extraction – just like the one I’d witnessed at the hands of the surgeon back then. When I got home, I rummaged through my account for that post. It was the only piece I’d written before forgetting about the blog altogether. A little embarrassed, I deleted it.
Like all personal writing, blogging introduces a number of awkward conflicts for the writer. It is as intimate as it is public, as arrogant as it is self-effacing. You either hope no one will read it/fear everyone will, or you hope everyone will read it/fear no one will. Personal blogging is the equivalent of publishing your diary. You’re subject to the same ridicule in both scenarios. Why anyone does it voluntarily is beyond me (I’m in the hope none/fear all camp), but here I am, giving it a try. Authentaux is born, and I hope you’ll wish it a happy birthday with me!
authentaux 