Wisdom Teeth–the Follow-up

 

So after much (fearful) anticipation, the moment finally came when I had to walk down a long hallway to the operating room.  I must have been at least a little bit calm because I noted the intricate wood design covering both walls and the shiny marble (or maybe granite) floor as I walked along the corridor.

 

I finally arrived in the operating room were there were all kinds of sharp looking things, tubes, and four different people who looked like they were very busy.  “I’m only getting teeth removed",”  I thought to myself, “Four people are necessary?????  Uh oh….”  I was pretty nervous at this point.  But as I was told to sit down on this plastic chair in the middle of the room and a plastic bag was put over my head (in case I started vomiting apparently) I started praying.  After all, this may be scary to me (however insignificant removing wisdom teeth may seem in the grand scheme of things), but God’s got it under control.

 

I mention, twice, my fear of needles and how the last time they missed numerous times as various different tubes began to be laid across my body.  Twice I asked for laughing gas and twice they responded, “That’s only for little kids.”  “Don’t worry,” they said.  Ya…. that helped.  Haha.  So a few seconds later with me looking away and bracing for pain it was announced that the IV had been inserted into my arm.  I was confused.  “Did they really get it or are they just lying and are going to surprise stab me?”  They did surprise me… it was already in.  Apparently I was so focussed on preparing for the pain that I had completely missed the fact that the pain (of the needle) was already over.

 

“When are you going to use that general anaesthetic stuff?” I asked.  It will hit you in about sixty seconds.  I started singing in my head.  I was a little bit scattered in my thinking at that point so I think I sang the first verse of about four different songs and went over a short memory verse.

 

BAM!  I woke up to a lady pulling a tube out of my nose in a completely different room.  I was in the recovery position, not even on the same chair or bed as I had been in the operating room.  Wow.  Weird.  My tongue felt as if it was expanding in my mouth, barely able to fit inside.  Oh, my tongue is outside my mouth.  Good I looked down, because I couldn’t feel a thing and if I hadn’t, it may have been there for a while.  My entire face is without feeling.  That’s good though, they just removed 4 bones from my mouth.  To feel would not be good.

 

The nurse left after asking if I was ok.  I tried to respond but couldn’t.  Between the numbness and the massive wadding in my mouth my efforts were futile.  I gave her the thumbs up and smiled as best I could.  For all I know when I thought smile, she saw drool.  I lay there for almost an hour enraptured by this device at the foot of my bed.  Blood pressure, oxygen something or other, and heart rate.  I was surprisingly calm.  Blood pressure was optimal, the oxygen thingy showed 100% (I have no idea what that means), my heart rate was averaging around 52 bpm.  Occasionally I would drift off to sleep only to be woken up by the heart monitor yelling at me for allowing my heart rate to drop below 50 bpm.  Apparently that’s not good.  I should get that checked, my heart rate is always right around there.  Anyways, I would try to move a little bit and my heart rate would climb up to 60 or 65 bpm and begin to drop back down as I stopped moving.

 

Then I realized something quite exciting to me.  While I could not feel my face I could tell that I was not wet!  This was very good!  Haha

 

After getting ‘briefed’ on what to do and not to do I was allowed to go home.  Thankfully I have taken a few pictures of the experience.  They aren’t too spectacular but I figured I could post picture updates on how I’m doing.  (That’s for you, my worried mother)  The pain is supposed to peak near the 72 hour mark so we will see how it goes!

 

Hopefully this didn’t bore you too much!  Thanks for reading and check out the picture updates!