Chipmunk Cheeks
February 20th, 2005 by Sarin
On February 10th, I sat in the dentist chair, full of novacaine in my jaw, and through the reflections of my dentist’s glasses, sat and watched my dentist pull my three wisdom teeth (only one impacted sideways) from the back of my mouth. I was awake and coherent for the whole procedure.
I originally wasn’t planning on getting my teeth pulled. They weren’t a nuisance and they didn’t need to be done immediately. However, my dentist insisted that if I were to get into Peace Corps, it would be better off if I have them removed now instead of getting them removed in some overseas country. I agreed, and much to the help and confusion of the Washington office, I decided to suck it up and do it no matter if I needed it for Peace Corps or not.
The only catch was, my dentist was one of a few dentists who do wisdom teeth extractions, and he only did them without putting victims (sorry, patients) to sleep. I didn’t think it was a big deal, and planned to just ‘work’ around it. Only one was impacted, and I felt tough enough to just wing it out.
The appointment was scheduled for Thursday night, I had it planned that I would still go to work the next morning. Then, folks began to question my random extraction. Apparently nobody I know, or anybody my friends know, have ever had their wisdom teeth pulled when they were awake. This actually began to start scaring me, and then work insisted that I take the day off just in case.
Come day of the procedure, I was only scared because I listened to everybody’s horror stories. I knew I was going to feel some pain, but I wouldn’t let it stop me from anything. Plus, I had the next day off as a nice security blanket.
On that night, I drove to the dentist after a blizzard the morning of. The place was empty of patients, but the dentist went right to work on my mouth. The long novacaine shot was pretty painful, my legs started twitching, but it was the only pain I was going to feel until later.
Hard stuff first, he goes into my impacted tooth. I’m listening to him the whole time and trying to watch him from the reflection of his glasses. He noted numerous times how much more of that tooth was getting broken up. Apparently he had to split the tooth in three places before it was all gone. Again, I’m listening to him the whole time. He stitched the wound with disposable stitches and put pressure on the wound with numerous gauze pads.
He goes to work on my other two teeth, one of them didn’t hurt but I totally felt my jaw cracking and a sensation when it finally popped out. Once everything was over, they gauzed my up for the last time, gave me pills, gauze pads, and a prescription for percoset and told me to be on my way because Brooks closes at 9.
I drive myself with a mouth full of gauze pads to Brooks down the street. I begin talking about insurance and the prescription to the pharmacist over the counter. Once she started looking at me weird, I then told her I just had my wisdom teeh extracted literally 10 minutes ago. She gives me some suprised look, and notes that I look and acted better than most people she’s seen. 15 minutes later, I was out of Brooks with my painkillers, mouth is still numb.
On the drive home, it started snowing again. I was happy everything was over with, and I enjoyed the silence of the snowy street. Music was playing in my car, and I began to sing along. I laugh to myself in my head.
The novacaine wears out after an hour after taking my first painkiller. I begin to doubt their effectiveness and since my mouth was bleeding profusely, I was double stuffing my mouth with more gauze pads increasing my pain. I had trouble sitting still, and only felt better after ice. The pain got increasingly worse and instead of doing nothing watching tv, to instead do nothing in bed.
At 3am, I didn’t stop bleeding or get any sleep, so I went to go change my gauze pads again. Then I realize that my stitches extended along the side of my mouth and that was why I was still bleeding in that area. I gauze the side of my mouth, it stops bleeding and I finally get to sleep.
I awoke the next morning to no pain. My mouth was dry, it was 8:30 and I felt fine. I stopped gauzing, went to bed and eventually went on with the day doing nothing. I took another painkiller just in case , but I got incredibly sick and was shaking myself to sleep.
The rest of the weekend consisted me trying to do things normally. I only had a day to be a veg, I was back to eating chicken fingers and pizza in 24 hours. I even drank, I drank alot for my condition. Things felt fine. My stitches fell out on Sunday, and it was an indication that things were all downhill from here. My face looked really funny, especially to those partying with me. I only had chipmunk cheeks on one side.
So for the record, I got my teeth pulled without getting put to sleep, I drove myself to and from, I sang along in the car, I experienced little pain compared to everybody else, was back to eating chicken fingers and pizza in a day, and I even drank on medication (meaning slightly after the effects were worn off, the alcohol just reverses the wearing off part).
Crazy me.
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