Wisdom I do not have...
Two weeks ago, I had quite possibly the worst procedure I have ever gone through my life so far. Wisdom teeth extraction! Ugh, even the terminology sounds ugly!
Let's break down the word extraction...
Ex: nobody like's this prefix. What a bad connotation.
* Ex-boyfriend
* Ex-girlfriend
* Ex friend
* Ex boss
Traction: the adhesive friction of a body on some surface.
These 2 words combined. No bueno!
I anticipated pain and psyched myself up to it. I've had several operations before so I had an idea of the level of pain and recovery time to expect. However, I was not prepared for this one. I'm seriously not being a baby about it. I mean exactly a year ago, I had my foot surgery and I was dancing just 3 short weeks later!
I got to the surgical clinic and walked into the usual pasty white, ultra sterilized room and sat down on what I later coined as the torture chair. The doctor walked in shortly to start the procedure. She grabbed my right arm to insert the needle for the anesthetic IV. I told her that my left arm has more pronounced veins but she proceeded to ignore me and continued with the right. Of course she missed the vein...surprise! And proceeded to do a butterfly on my hand instead. SUCKS! I hate the butterfly way. It hurts double and it never fails to give me a hematoma. Great, it's been 5 minutes and I already have to broken blood vessels!
30 seconds after the IV insertion I remember uttering "I'm going to sleep now".
The procedure took all of an hour and a half. Afterwards I was sent home with a post surgery pamphlet, a bag of gauze and a reminder card for my follow up appointment.
First of all, I don't get why they didn't give me all of these post crap information so that I could have read it ahead of time and better prepared myself.
NOOOO... Instead, they gave it to me post surgery while I'm doped up beyond belief, completely disoriented and can't even stand on my own. The pamphlet later served its purpose as a cupping device as I threw up on it while trying to read post-op caring instructions. All I remember was something about not drinking, smoking or eating for the next couple of weeks.
Okay, I made up the last part but it might as well have disclosed that. The first 4 days was unbelievably painful. I couldn't open my mouth at all. The only thing I can do was to drink or eat through a straw. Which meant that I was constantly hungry and in pain. By the 5th day, I was able to move on to chopsticks and introduced noodle to my liquid diet. I now consider myself a noodle connoisseur. Why noodles? Because it’s the only thing that I can eat that does not require any chewing at all. Just sip, gulp and swallow. I now have an affinity for Soba…yum!
The word noodle derives from the German Nudel (noodle) and may be related to the Latin word nodus (knot). In2005, the oldest noodles yet discovered were found at Qinghai. The 4,000-year-old noodles appear to have been made from millet.
The swelling started the day after the procedure and I was sporting the Quasimodo look for a good 3 days - only the left side of my face was swollen. The pain carried on for a few more days while I bitched and moaned about it to anyone unfortunate enough to be around me. The worst part was that I had to go in to work while still in pain. I couldn't take the normal medicinal dosage otherwise I would have been curled up in a fetal position under my desk, snoring away. So I had to cut the pills in half enough to just slightly numb the pain but not enough to put me to sleep. Each night, I dreamed of 9 hours of sleep in only 3 hours.
I’ve been taking it easy, sleeping longer than I need to, and enjoying the reprieve from having a legitimate excuse to not hit gym.
Hugs not drugs,
Jakey
