Wisdom Teeth

Qualifications:

1. If you have not had your wisdom teeth removed and it is somewhere in the future before Alzheimers sets in and you can forget this post, DO NOT READ.
2. If you're in the mood for a funny story and not the real, ugly part of my day today, then DO NOT READ.

That said, this post is primarily a place for me to say all the things I couldn't say today when I was getting teeth ripped from my skull.

So, I have been putting this off, since, well, high school when I saw Niki puke blood while changing her gauze when she got her wisdom teeth out. After a number of oral infections related to teeth still being there, I finally made an appointment. I hadn't been concerned all week, but then, last night it hit me that I was severley dreading this whole deal, and was beginning to get scared.

As I left work today, people told stories of funny drugged-up dental stories and as I got off the elevator at the dentist's office with Ryan holding my hand. I stopped in front of the door and paused like a little kid protesting vegetables. I went in. My nervousness was clear as I found myself growling under my breath as the hygenist brought me to the back room. I sat down in a chair and proceeded to let them know I was by no means looking forward to this.

They explained the laughing gas and took my blood pressure. They were surprised at how calm I was. Let's just say that Psalm 23 was rolling through my head like a huge muddy tire pulling the nasty Jeep through the swamp - I knew I needed to press on, but was fighting with the rest of my brain saying, "Leave - you can still get out now! Who cares? RUN AWAY!"

They offered me headphones, and i got a small glimmer of hope of Chopin, or Mozart, but it landed on some random radio station, complete with commercials, and I was too scared to open my eyes the entire 2 hours to change the channel. They did, however (and bless their souls), show me the volume button, so as soon as I heard words like "anisthetic" and anything remotely medical, I cranked that baby up.

Back to the laughing gas - it made me heavy, but I expected way more. I was more than cohesive the entire time and (obviously) remember everything, down to the taste of the sawdust from the drill/saw thing they used on my teeth as the doctor remarked, "wow, you really don't want to let go of your wisdom!"

So they did the whole local anisthetic thing too. This is weird. It made every swallow a small panic attack, wondering if the stuff in the back of my throat was clear-worthy, or if their vacuum/water thing would fix it. Then I realized I couldn't really feel anything anyways, and what I thought was stuff to swallow was my huge, freaking, lazy tongue.

The doctor talked to me off and on throughout, asking me to open wide, or something. That was horrific. It was great when he asked me how I was doing and all I could think about was how badly I wanted to cry. The whole pulling out of the teeth merely felt like a pressure, or pushing as he called it. So I didn't really here a pop when they came out or anything, but man he was rough on my mouth! Lips getting pinched as he used the rest of my mouth as leverage, pulling dry mouth-skin this way and that, and then dragging/supporting/pulling the silk thread to sew up my mouth holes along the side of my face so i knew exactly what was happening.

All in all, I wanted to cry about 8 times. Towards the end, I finally did. However, the quick breaths in after the tears make you choke when you've got tons of people/places/things in your mouth, so I quickly had to pull myself together.

1 hour and 45 minutes later, it was over. I had cried, I was distraught, when the laughing gas was gone, I didn't feel any different making me think they were just piping in minty fresh outdoor air, and all I could think about was how much I wanted Ryan to hold my hand and to crawl into his lap like a kitten. We left with gauze in my mouth, an ice-pack on my face, dry-heaving (or not) with my gag-reflex, swallowing blood, and leaking from my lips that were still numb and getting fatter and fatter.

So that was the most awful part of my life - ever. But the blood has clot, I have two types of pain killer, and let's be honest - I'm never, EVER, doing that again!

P.S. Did I mention that the chair was actually uncomfortable and hurt my head so that I had a sore spot an hour in?