Character leaving me, now take the wisdom!
I arrive at Dr. T.’s office feeling a little anxious about the procedure. Not exactly sure why other than I have heard so many horror stories regarding wisdom teeth extraction. Given that my lower teeth are completely impacted and will have to be drilled out chunk by chunk, I am anticipating a rough ride.
Not to mention, Dr. T., told us that my procedure was more complicated due to the nature of the impaction and my age.
My what?
What are you saying? Ahem!
I KNOW… I KNOW…
I should have had this taken care of when I was younger, but my mother wanted me to not only have character, but to be full of wisdom.
Before they started the I.V. and got me sedated he mentioned one little tiny detail. BCBS denied my surgery. Exclusion he said. He followed up by saying, that because he was at UT Southwestern they could do the procedure for about 6K if I still wanted to move forward. I said, “Really? That’s all? Sounds too good to be true, but sign me up. We can do that.. I’m already on this path, let’s do it.”
Then I was sent to dream land.
What a trip!! I couldn’t feel any pain but I kept waking up in and out of consciousness as they were drilling and pulling the teeth. The bottom ones were definitely a bugger and just didn’t want to budge. They kept splitting them and pulling them out piece by piece. I was conscious off and on and could hear them talking. Thank GOD I couldn’t feel anything because it was freaky enough to just hear what was going on.
Dr. T. was awesome. He was very much in control of everything. He was confident and gentle, but yet had control of the room. I could hear him talking to his assistants while doing the procedure and he was very respectful and yet firm at the same time. Made me feel very comfortable knowing he was going to be doing my future surgery as well.
I woke up feeling numb, like my face was in another room.
By the time we got home though, it was a different story!
OUCHIE WAWA!! Not nice!!!
I was a complete mess. I still had cotton stuffed in my mouth and kept drooling blood. When I changed the cotton, I had to just hang my face over the sink and just let it go. (Gross I know, but true). How Sharon was able to stand there and help me, let along stay with my freakishly gross self, I have no clue, but Thank you God!.
That weekend was terrible.
We had a family gathering the next day, to which I showed up zombified on Vicodin and with a chipmunk face. Needless to say, we didn’t stay long.
I went home, got back into my PJs, lounged on the couch, cried a little, took lots of meds, tried to drink soup and felt completely sorry for myself and whiney for the rest of the weekend.
I felt like someone had put my head in a meat grinder.
But, like several people had told me, Tuesday morning I woke up and felt like a whole new person. Most of the pain was gone and all I needed was a couple of Advil to make it through the day.
Thank you to God for getting me through that, and Thank you to Sharon for her patience and love through that weekend. There is no way I could face all of this without her.
