Post-Op

Thanks for all the well wishes. I'm fine. Flowers are not necessary. If you feel you must do something, please make a donation to Little People of America, one of the Undaground's favorite non-profit organizations.

Wow, I'd have to say that the wisdom teeth extraction experience was worse than I was expecting. Despite my over-the-top mock anxiety on the blog, I was not really worried about it and thought it would be nothing more than a moderate inconvenience. I was wrong.

I had three wisdom teeth to remove; one was taken out about 5 years ago. Yesterday morning, the first two on the left side went very smoothly. I felt pressure but it was quick and painless. One more to go and I was out of there. No problem. On the other side, it was a different story.

When he first started to pull on it, I let out a little yelp. I said "Hey doc, I can feel that!" Of course, to him it sounded like "Aaaah, Goccch. Nokunoopalala."

So, he went back to the needle and more novacaine and walked out of the room. After about five minutes, he came back and started poking around.

"Do you feel that?"

(Two-syllabled grunt meaning "no")

"How about that?"

(Same negative grunt with more feeling)

Now he starts to pull again.

Oh my God. That's intense pain. "Ahhhhhrgh." I could feel it beneath or behind the tooth, in the bone of my face. I just wanted numb. Get me more numb.

Then I heard something that blew me away. The oral surgeon sighed. I couldn't see his eyes at the time, but I heard him roll them.

"I'm sorry", I said. Of course, it sounded like "Ahhh goggy." What the hell was I doing apologizing to somebody who was literally inflicting serious pain on me. It was Stockholm Syndrome at its finest. What was I sorry for?

That's when the extraction process turned a bit evil. He poked me with a needle again, and this time, didn't wait for it to set in. I've been to the dentist enough where I know it takes time to get numb. What was he doing? Did he have a brunch date with someone? Was he trying to finish before Ellen comes on? Maybe he likes to dance along with her.

Now, as he's yanking at the tooth, he says "Raise your left hand if you can still feel it."

My hand shot up. This was real pain. Again, I apologized, but I'm not sure why.

"OK, I'm going to let it sit for a minute and get more numb."

"Good idea, genious", I said. But it came out "Uhhh ga".

Again, I saw the unmistakable look of annoyance on his face. This asshole was annoyed by me. As I type this, I'm now realizing the full lunacy of that situation, because at the time, I was just trying to survive. There are few instances where you are less powerless than in a dentists' chair.

Before I knew it, he was back in there. I'd concluded that I was going to feel the tooth being pulled out, and it was going to hurt. I decided to just deal with it and get it over with. Now, as he's getting leverage to continue to work on the tooth, it felt like the weight of his body and his portly assistant was all resting on my bottom lip. This was pain designed to distract me. Maybe they didn't realize that part of my face wasn't numb either, and they were so focused on the wisdom tooth that they didn't realize that they were now hurting my freaking lip! I've never done this in a dentist's chair before, but I raised my hand up and touched the dentist's arm.

He stopped.

"You just raised your arm up right there. Why did you do that?"

"My lip."

"Did your mother ever tell you that you're difficult to deal with?"

"What?" He understood that. This time, I gave him an insincere "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault. Don't apologize." Whatever, dude, I'm sure you really feel that way.

One last time. He pulled on the tooth. My feet curled, my knees bended, I grabbed the armrests, I tried to suppress noise as best I could. I felt it, despite three attempts at the novacaine. Then, I felt him put the gauze in and knew the tooth was out.

Whew.

Today is a much better day already. I'm ready to move from soup to macaroni and cheese soon. I just did my first saltwater rinse and everything is good. I have two or three days of Percoset left and probably won't need them beyond this afternoon.

My advice to anyone to needs to get their wisdom teeth out: get more than novacaine.