My Wisdom Teeth

"Get your teeth out, Heather"... "It's not that bad, Heather"..."You'll feel so much better after you do it, Heather"

You're all a bunch of liars!!

This is how it went down:
Wednesday morning, James took me to the oral surgeon's and all was going according to plan. The last thing I remember before drifting off peacefully to sleep is one of the nurses placing a tiny oxygen mask over my nose...


Then, I heard some faint voices, and then I felt them remove three of my teeth...all while I was supposed to be peacefully drugged up. It wasn't as horrible as you're probably imagining it. It was like I was woken up in the middle of the night, still really groggy, and not really all that awake, somewhere between consciousness and dreamland...but I still felt it, and I can remember that I felt it.

Then next thing that I remember is waking up in the recovery room, and a nurse changing the gauze in my mouth.

After that, things were pretty much normal, a little pain, but not too bad...and being really hungry and thirsty, but not being able to do a whole lot about that for the first day...okay, so the pain was really bad in one of my "sockets" (I admit it, I cried), but after the first day, not too much pain, just a numb lower lip.
That's right, it's been three days and my lower lip (half of it, anyways) is still numb. When I called the oral surgeon, he didn't sound surprised at all,


"The roots of your lower teeth were wrapped around the nerve, so we had to do some twisting and pulling to get it out without severing the nerve, but your feeling should come back."


"Should come back?!!!!!"



"It's rare for it to be permanent."



"PERMANENT?!!!!!!!!!!!!"



The only good news from that conversation came when I mentioned that my lip had been itching and tingling and driving me crazy...apparently that's a good sign. It means that the feeling should return in a few weeks, maybe a month or so. That's right a month or so. So, maybe I won't have a lop-sided smile for the rest of my life...maybe.

PS James got me a bouquet of flowers after the surgery...kudos to him!