Wisdom Teeth

This past Thursday, I got my wisdom teeth taken out. A little recounting for ya’ll:

A couple of weeks ago I was told that I would need to get my impacted wisdom teeth taken out since they were messing with the newly acquired straightness of my teeth. This straightness was gotten only through hundreds of dollars and a few years of braces, so my parents were all too hasty to sign the papers to get the teeth taken out. When they told me that I was getting them taken out, I wasn’t too concerned. Figured a little numbing and some funny times were ahead. But then they told me it was an actual surgery. I’m sure all of you know that I want to go to med school and maybe pursue a surgeon’s career, but when they said I needed surgery, I sort of freaked out. A lot. I’m a bad liar and everyone could tell that I was a bit nervous for what was to happen.

So Thursday finally rolled around and I was ready. I felt starving because you aren’t allowed to eat 6 hours before the surgery. Of course, I didn’t eat for longer than that because if I did that I would have to eat at like 4 in the morning, and I was not prepared to sacrifice sleep time. So I had a Last Supper of sorts at Buffalo Wild Wings with some friends, leaving 16 hours before surgery time. I’m an American and eat pretty much every 4 hours with my pampered lifestyle. 16 hours felt like a century.  Waiting in the waiting room my tummy growled and my lips were begging for water. 

But most of all I was nervous. I kept worrying that I would not go under after the medicine. That somehow I would feel the surgery itself.

Finally, I was called back. The nurse went through a checklist of things to put on me: Blood pressure cuff, heart rate monitors, oxygen monitor, and an IV. The heart rate monitor was at a standard 70; not too bad for someone as nervous as I was. The blood pressure cuff would go off every four minutes. The lady exclaimed how wonderful my blood pressure was, that maybe I wasn’t too nervous or something. Little did she know that I have notoriously low blood pressure, so my mother and I shared a little private laugh.

Then the doctor came in. Heart rate came up to 80. The doctor started giving a spiel over what was going to happen.  Heart rate came up to 90. Doctor pulled out the needle and put the stuff in the IV. Heart rate was above 100. All I remember is waiting 30 seconds and exclaiming that the stuff works fast, but apparently my heart rate kept going up to 120. I don’t remember anything after this, but apparently the doctor felt the need to give me another dose of the stuff to knock you out. He said it was the equivalent to an elephant tranquilizer. As a 135 pound teenage girl, this definitely made me stay out for ever. I don’t remember even leaving the building, but my mum claims that they threw me in a wheelchair and just kind of kicked me out as soon as they could. I wasn’t even awake and functioning.

I do remember waking up a few times the day of the surgery though, but every time I did I thought I could walk and ended up falling down. I had to be carried pretty much everywhere and was force fed. I tried refusing medicine and food but my mother, stern as ever, was not going to stray from doctors orders in the least. I slept pretty much all day and ate icecream. Sounds like the life, huh? My mother said I looked like a drunk girl who was too disoriented to even realize she had just puked in her own hair. I was pretty out of it. I had the best medicine in the world though, including Ibuprofen 800 (prescription strength), Penicillin, an acidic mouthwash, and Vicodin.

Vicodin is by far the strongest, and whenever I take it I get tipsy and say pretty much everything that comes to mind. My boyfriend drove me to the movie store and the people there definitely believed I was inebriated. Finally off of Vicodin (hopefully for good), though still faithfully taking all other medications, I am fully functioning and just fine now. This is obviously the first “dramatic” thing that has happened to me, and I felt the story had to be shared, if not to assure others that have to have Oral Surgery that it is very mild. Just make sure to allot yourself enough recovery time.  I live a very charmed life, and please do not think I’m a drama queen by my retelling. I do like to add a bit of spice to my stories.

 Sincerely Sydney