The Most Boring Wisdom Tooth Extraction Story Ever

I was kind of surprised when the dentist informed me about the wisdom tooth.

There I was, having my ordinary checkup, no X-rays, no special procedures, no nothing, and he sort of pokes at tooth #1 and tells me it's gonna have to come out.

My reaction was not fear or trepidation. "Mildly perplexed" might be the way to put it. I could practically feel my eyebrows raise. I always sort of assumed that once you passed a certain age, either wisdom teeth were gonna be a problem or they weren't. It was just so out-of-left-field that he might as well have said I was pregnant.

Honestly, I think I would have been more upset if he'd told me I needed another freakin' cavity filled. That at least I know how to deal with.

But I dutifully trod home, made my appointment with the oral surgeon and read up on the matter. Not just medical information either. You know. Blogs. Peoples' personal accounts. The odd YouTube video. They were very helpful to me, and I vowed that I would share my own experience with the world when all was said and done.

What a waste of time that would turn out to be.

My oral surgeon proved to be a great guy, really nice. I showed up on a Monday for an X-ray and for the first time got to see this offending tooth in my upper jaw. Unfortunately, the X-ray also revealed that its counterpart on my left side was also prime for removal. It was hiding under the gum, waiting to emerge like Martin Sheen in "Apocalypse Now".

He expressed surprise that my dentist hadn't told me about it.

I told him that my dentist only knew about the tooth I was supposed to be in for because he'd sort of poked at it with a stick.

Anyway one phone call to my dentist later, we agreed that I might as well get both upper wisdom teeth extracted. Two for the price of two!

The bad news, besides the price tag, was that at the age of 27, I was already at the point in life where complications might be an issue. You're supposed to deal with these things while you're young, but my teeth, like so much of me, were late bloomers.

The good news is that the uppers are much easier to deal with than the lowers. Easier for the surgeon, easier for the anaesthetic, easier for recovery, and most important, easier for the avoidance of the dreaded dry socket.

I basically organized the next couple of weeks of my life with the intent to do literally everything possible in order to avoid dry socket.

My appointment was a Thursday morning. The extraction was a breeze; honestly, I'd had cavity sessions more eventful. The most painful part of the extraction was removing the Band-Aid from my hairy arm later that day.

This marked my first experience with both nitrous oxide and general anaesthesia. At first I didn't think the nitrous was working; I wondered if I was just breathing sweet and very expensive air.

And then all of a sudden I started laughing. But it was a purely physical reaction; I didn't feel lightheaded or floaty or happy, I was just laughing for no apparent reason, and the laughing made me happy, not the other way round. It was like having someone drag you through the water and claiming that you were swimming.

It's weird to be laughing on the sheer virtue of your stomach pumping. I got a big dumb grin on my face. Shades of the Joker.

Then came the IV line. They didn't make me count backwards from ten or anything like that, when it came time to knock me out. I just remember the nurse patting my arm and talking to me. They didn't even tell me when I could expect to be asleep.

Then I was asleep.

I did not dream.

I awoke while they were finishing; I estimate I was awake for the last few minutes. Of course, my estimations of time aren't much good, as I was surprised to check my watch and find I was knocked out for over an hour. I would've guessed twenty minutes.

They gave me four Advil. Shook hands all around. My mother helped me to the car. Bled (and continued to bleed) like hell. The hardest part was not to spit.

For reasons I don't fully understand, I bled far past the point you're supposed to bleed, and went through an awful lot of gauze. I was sort of hoping that some pain would come at some point. So I'd have an excuse to touch my Percoset.

Ate pudding. And milkshakes. That was about it for day one.

Friday night, loaded up on all the special supplies I'll need to make it through the weekend. Ice cream, a gallon of milk, mac 'n' cheese, mashed potatoes, oatmeal, pineapple juice. (Apparently pineapple juice is good for one's mouth at this time.) I hadn't had oatmeal in about, oh, fifteen years. It's weird how the things you keep in the house all become useless when you have to change your eating pattern. Food, food everywhere, and not a drop to eat.

There's something inherently sad about a low-traffic supermarket on a Friday night. I must have looked like quite a depressed bachelor, stocking up on food for one.

The lack of meat was killing me. "If I had a piece of ham right now," I told a friend, "I would lick it. I would lick it with force."

Saturday rolled round, then Sunday. Passed without incident. An Advil or two. It dawned on me that I really am the most boring person in the world. There I was with fifteen Percosets just sitting there and I haven't touched a one. I was completely prepared to experience something new this weekend, something toxic, psychotropic or worse, and so far the end result of my surgery was slight discomfort and an inability to chew.

The blender wouldn't run one morning. Plug wasn't working. Somehow in the process of repair I did something unspeakably wrong and managed to spill the chunks of my as-yet-unblended milkshake all over the kitchen. Despair.

That was about it.

It was one week (almost to the minute) after the operation when I got my stitches taken out. I vaguely wonder, now, what has been done with my extracted teeth.

I don't fool myself that the readers of this little tale are interested in my general welfare or the minutiae of my everyday life. They're looking for information on surviving their own wisdom tooth extraction experience. Will the pain be bad? they wonder; will I get dry socket? How can I avoid this, who do I have to bribe to get that?

And all I can say is, hopefully you'll be like me, and hopefully you'll have a really boring story too.