Out of the Valley of the Shadow of... something

Boy, that sucked. I have to say that I really recommend that if you're going to have your wisdom teeth out you should do it when you're 18. I was totally not impressed with this whole procedure. Dentists and oral surgeons are barbarians and every single one of them should be drug into the street and broken on the rack.

I will say that days one and two after surgery were pretty mild. The procedure itself is amusingly painless of course and even the first day boasts no huge discomfort. They send you home with documentation that claims boldly "most pain and discomfort should subside by day four". So when day one rolls around and you're feelin' pretty good and day four should be the the end of it all you get to feelin' pretty giddy. Suddenly the recovery room joke of "remind me before we leave to schedule the next four, I think I have some left" doesn't have quite the same ring of bravery that it did before.

What the literature doesn't tell you is that day one is supposed to be the easy day. Days three and four, however, amount to hell on earth and the surgeon damn well knows it because when you call the office the nurse's response is, "Oh yeah, this is day three. You're going to want to rip the rest of your teeth out with a fork. Just tape your arms to your sides and you'll be fine."

So as day four sets, you find yourself yearning for the nirvana of day five. Oh most precious and jubilant day five wherein all the pain subsides! How we love you! Then day five dawns fresh and new and filled with bullshit as you still want to rip your face off. Now it's clear that someone is stabbing your face with a fork and damn it, they won't stop. Perhaps that explains why your head is the size and shape of a bowling ball as your skin inflates like an airbag on an 06 Dodge Neon trying to protect the annoyed contents of your skull.

Day six you've friggin' had it. By god I'm taking my iron maiden to that dentist's office and I'm luring that sadistic bastard out to the car. Day six, eight a.m., calling the doctor's office... "oh... he's had a cancellation?" (must be someone who reads this blog)... "oh good!... yes, I can come in at nine. Yes, thank you. See you then." This man is mine! Something though... not quite right... something different...

An hour later I'm in the doctor's office admitting somewhat sheepishly, "yeah, I feel kinda silly being here. I don't really have any pain at this point." Hrm. Stupid skull betraying me again at the last minute. And to think I dragged the iron maiden out to the car for nothing. Perfectly good weekend shot to hell too. I'll have you know that Saturday we hosted a euchre party and I laid in bed for the majority of it in a narcotic haze. Worse than that, Sunday was "Swinger's Night" at our church and my wife had to go by herself. In retrospect that may be for the best though; I probably would have drawn that dusty octogenarian Mrs. Shephardson again.

Into the Valley of the Shadow of... something

Alright, yesterday I did something that I've been avoiding for a VERY long time. I had my Wisdom teeth out. So here's the story...

When I was a mere 16 years old, Dr. Wysong told me, "You should have those wisdom teeth out. It'll be much easier on you if you do it before they're fully ossified." My mother, bless her, when i said, "I really don't want to do that" was happy to shrug and say, "OK, Great. Don't do it." because it allowed her to not have to worry about it. Eighteen years later, those words "fully ossified" still haunted me. I was pretty sure that by now, they were about as ossified as they were going to get.

It's not that they were bothering me after all that time except in the sense that my wife was peppering me with semi-constant reminders that I needed to get my wisdom teeth out. Personally, I was perfectly willing to live with them as they were given that the alternative (at least in my mind) was death or permanent brain damage due to the evil chemicals they pump into you while they do these kinds of surgeries. I've never been a fan of chemical-induced catatonia as I've always felt that my grip on reality was infirm enough that I hardly needed to loosen it through chemistry. So, the years turned into decades until we arrive at the present day.

As it turns out, the procedure itself was unwittingly amusing. Pumped full of enough chemicals I was barely able to maintain a straight face and quipped with the surgeons endlessly. I have no recollection of the actual surgery which I assume is entirely by design. I can only assume that it was gruesomely unpleasant. The last thing I remember is entering a sort of hypnogogic state and then being helped from the chair into the recovery room. Whatever evil crunchings and pullings took place in between leave their mark only in my extremely sore jaws and cheeks. I'm told that in 4-6 weeks I'll be as good as new. That hardly seems a fair trade for the 10 minutes of giggling that proceeded the operation. The wheel of karma has cheated me on that account it seems.

In any case, that bit of unpleasantness is over with. One only wonders what future modifications my wife has planned for me now.