Spring has finally sprung here in RI, and I'm loving it! The trees outside my house are covered with white blossoms, and the grass is green. The sky is blue, and there are buds and flowers everywhere. I'm sure it will get hot and muggy soon enough, and I'll be back to whining about missing Colorado weather, but for now I'm appreciating the tardy arrival of the long awaited Spring.
Last Thursday I had one of my two remaining wisdom teeth removed. I had the top two removed when I was 21, and the bottom two have been grown in and minding their own business for several years, but my dentist didn't want them in there anymore. Apparently my ability to keep them brushed and flossed way back there was less than stellar, and to maintain my amazing luck in the dentist's chair (no cavities since I was 10), he said they needed to go.
Dr. Morriseau decided to take one out at a time so that I would be able to eat, which I can appreciate, but after that experience he's going to have to do some serious sweet talking to get me back in the chair to remove the last one! What happened? Well, let's just say that the tooth did not want to go quietly.
It was supposed to be a simple, quick procedure. 30 minutes. In, out, done. As you can probably guess...not so much. I was awake for the whole procedure, which made it so much more fun!
He shot me full of novocaine, got me good and numb and then started the process of "rocking" my left wisdom tooth out of my mouth. Only, THIS tooth didn't want to rock. It didn't want to move at all, and because there was very little room to move around back there, he decided to pull out the drill. Nothing more pleasant than the sound of a drill accompanied by the smell of burning...something...coming from inside your mouth! FUN! He broke the tooth into several pieces, grasping and "rocking" each piece as he broke it away from the rest. There was so much pressure on my jaw that at one point I had to reach up and apply upward pressure on the left side of my jaw to keep it from feeling like it was going to rip off of my face!
Dr. Morriseau was literally leveraging himself against the dentist's chair to work on it and at one point said...out loud..."Oh, come ON!" Very soothing. (please note, I really like my dentist a lot, and actually almost laughed when he said it...but the fact that he has his hands and instruments in my mouth at the time kept me from enjoying his frustration out loud)
The last piece finally gave up the ghost, and he sent me on my way with a prescription for Vicodin and instructions for taking care of the gaping hole in the back of my mouth.
This past weekend was a bit rough, and I spent a lot of time on the couch with an ice pack and a bottle of Advil (didn't fill the prescription...I'm too tough to need prescription drugs!). I still have to depend on Advil, and have a dull ache nagging me pretty much all the time, but I can handle it. I can't really chew, which is getting old, but it's improving. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to eat a nice big filet...but not tonight!
I went back today for a check up, and he removed the stitch. Interestingly, he decided to tell me a story. He said that Friday he was golfing with a buddy who told him about a tooth that he had to pull that was so difficult that he actually told the patient that if he wanted another tooth pulled to please go to someone else. Dr. Morriseau said that hearing this story, he immediately thought of me. Glad to know it wasn't a pleasant experience for him either!
So there you go. My latest blog entry. A real gem, don't you think? Perhaps I'll be back again before Summer!
Life is good!
