I started having a small bit of pain in the back of my mouth and I was sure this meant trouble. I told my mom who immediately, without giving me a moment to take back what I had said, got in touch with my Uncle Randy. Uncle Randy is a dentist in the bay area and within a week of telling my mom about the slight pain, I was having x-rays taken. The results were exactly what I had dreaded:
"All four of your wisdom teeth are impacted. One of them is straddling the nerve there and I think you'll need to see an oral surgeon. As far as the pain though, it doesn't look to me like that is from the wisdom teeth. "
In my mind, this was worst case scenario: your pain is not associated but you DO need your wisdom teeth out. Is this not lose-lose?
So I set up my appointment with a lovely oral surgeon named Linda Miyatake. I remember laying on the operating table while the doctor checked my heart rate
"Op! Someone's nervous!" she said.
Next thing I know, I woke up in what felt like a very strange place. I sat up just a bit and caught a glimpse of a few ladies working on the other side of the window. Something must have been very upsetting about this because I proceeded to cry for the next....10 hours. I wasn't in pain, I wasn't concerned about my well being, I just really needed to fucking cry. and cry and cry and cry.
When I got home, I followed the doctors orders and immediately ate something so that I could take my Vicodin. Now I'm not sure if it was the Vicodin or the anesthesia, but something gave me intense, dinosaur-menopause like hot flashes, so much so that I couldn't even sleep away the awfulness.
When the doctor called to follow up later in the evening, Jon had gone to lacrosse and I was home alone. I immediately started to cry when I heard her voice
"I'm so glad you called" I said, sobbing.
*Note: I am a mother fucking bad ass and I would never cry to a stranger like this unless they had messed me up as bad as she did.
She told me stop taking my vicodin. My sweet, sweet Vicodin.
For the next week I was in constant agony. Crying on the phone to my mom, yearning for the day that it would all be over. Googling wisdom teeth horror stories and finally hitting the vodka and handling it like the Russians.
Only someone who is extremely confident in themselves would dare post photos like these:
1. This is about 2 hours after I got home, still feeling funny, but not like "ha ha" funny.
2. I call this the Godfather photo. I am scratching my neck and saying that I will "make him an offer he won't refuse"
3. And finally, I like to think of this photo as my celebrity DUI mug shot...It just screams Nick Nolte
yes. Lets just let that sink in for a minute.
Would you not be crying too?
It took at least 4 days to feel even remotely better and the discomfort probably stuck with me for a solid 3 weeks. It most certainly does not feel like I made space for my other teeth, or relieved any sort of pressure. In fact, if anything, I feel like I could use the extra four teeth. I read somewhere that wisdom teeth can come in very handy...
