None the wiser

Ouch.

Since yesterday was a planned furlough day at my company, and Monday is a vacation day for the Memorial Day weekend, I figured it would be the perfect time to have all four of my wisdom teeth extracted. Lucky me.

So Friday morning, I was all booked and prepped for this standard right-of-passage surgery.
One my Wizzers was already coming out, half way, and I have had some pain/discomfort with that for the past few months. On my X-rays, I appeared to have one impacted Wizzer down below, and the other two in there were starting to surface. So, my dentist and I decided that we'll just get all four effers out before they really start to become a problem for me later on.
Plus, I'm still under Jerill's dental insurance, through July, and with that paying 90% of all costs for this, financially, it made sense! Thanks Zymogenetics for the cheap dental care!

I declined the laughing gas. They wanted to give that to me to make me more comfortable when they try to get the IV in. I had warned them at my prelim visit a few weeks ago I was not an easy IV; I'm very calm, it's just my veins are TINY and it ALWAYS takes the nurses multiple attempts to get the dang needle in. I told them to just put it into the hand, on the back where that big vein is, from the get go. But no, they just had to try in the inner-elbow, like all the other medical know-it-alls and guess what, after two attempts, they still couldn't get a line in. I wasn't surprised by that and now I have a nasty bruise and broken blood vessels. It did take them two tries in my big hand vein in fact to get it to work finally. So, the expeirience yet again met my expectations; 4-5 jabs in my arm.

After the IV was in, they started the general anesthesia drip. I was already in my zen state anyway so I fell asleep almost instantly. I woke up about a 1/2 hour later and I was done; no more teeth. Whisked into a wheelchair and out to the car I felt no nausea, in fact I didnt' feel much of anything at all. I was hungry though by the time I got home. Jerill got me home and I had my first doses of Ibuprofen. And then the series of guaze packs in my mouth begins. Instert on each side, bite down snuggly, spit out every 1 hour or so. Repeat. I did this four about 7 hours.
Anyway, the first day of surgery you do bleed a lot. There is a lot of spit involved too. But, with the good pain meds and just relaxing in bed with my cats, it wasn't too bad. In 2001, which seems like an eternity ago, I broke my pelvis and some ribs in a car accident. I learned a lot about pain from that experience and am able to tolerate quite a bit now. So, on the doctor's famed 10-point pain scale they like to use, I would rate the 1st day of having your teeth pulled as a 3.

Around 5pm Jerill brought Mattie and Lucky upstairs and all six of us (dogs, cats and people) all watched a movie together. Scott stayed downstairs. Between 11 and 11 yesterday I watched the following movies: Kill Bill. Kill Bill 2. Outsourced. 4 episodes of the X-files (Season 9).

Today, I rate my pain on the 10-pt scale as a 4 . The swelling has begun. I'm icing frequently and using some great Arnica cream that I got from my new chiroprator. For pain management I'm using Tylenol with Codeine and for swelling just good old ibuprofen. I'm hoping I will not need the muscle-spazm stuff also prescribed; apparently, there is a chance my jaw will decide to freak out some time tomorrow.

So, all in all, while it's disgusting to have four holes in my mouth and taste blood 24/7, I can see the light at the end of this tunnel - about 5 days from now I should be feeling great. I am able to walk around and cook for myself and take my dogs out in the yard just fine. I've groomed the cats and will likely brush out and trim up Lucky later. Jerill is getting me a few more movies from Blockbuster now: Slum Dog Millionare and Underworld: Revenge of the Lycans. Today I've already watched Gladiator and 2 of the 3 Bourne movies.

What do you eat when you have teeth pulled? Well, I'm eating relatively well considering I'm on a soft food diet! Check it out...

From left to right: Izze soda, multi-vitamins from Chiropractor that speed healing, ovaltine, organic spaghettios, yogurt, ginger ale, egg flour soup mix, Haagen Daaz ginger ice cream, Snoqualmie Green Tea gelato, organic potatoes (for the potato leek soup Jerill is cooking right now), jello, chocolate pudding, miso soup mix, Ambrosia macaroni (from UK), chocolate milk, creamy tomato soup (from UK), and fresh laid eggs from Diane's farm for egg salad. I have to say, the food options are not too bad!