Thoughts on wisdom teeth surgery, one week out:

1. Sedation dentistry = awesomeness. I don’t remember a thing. I do still have quite the bruise at the IV site on my hand, but I can deal with that. Waking up wasn’t too bad. I was kind of dizzy and seeing double most the way home, but I didn’t feel nauseous at all.

2. Sorry Mr. Garrison, but drugs are good. I was given prescriptions for heavy-duty ibuprofen and Vicodin. I’ve relied mainly on the Tylenol. I’m really not too impressed with the Vicodin. It just makes me really hot…

3. Being able to eat nothing but ice cream isn’t as great as it sounds. As much as I like potatoes and ice cream, I’m over the mushy food thing. The first few days were terrible. That Ensure stuff is totally disgusting. Who even drinks it? It’s so thick and sweet. Just awful. Surprisingly Ramen noodles went pretty well over the weekend as long as I chopped them into itty bitty pieces. I attempted to eat some chicken on Sunday and that was a mistake. I’m up to overcooked pasta and soup now. And Culver’s French fries (yay for floppy fries!) My dietary restrictions have definitely made it easy to resist all the junk that’s been showing up at work this week. But man, I’d kill for a hamburger… or really anything with protein. I find it hilarious that on the paperwork they sent home with me they suggest eating macaroni and cheese on the day after surgery. Ha! And then they warn against Doritos. I won’t be eating Doritos for a long time still… Actually I don't even like Doritos...but anything Dorito-like is off the menu for a while.

4. It sucks being a side sleeper. The first couple of nights I had to sleep on my back, propped up on pillows. As much as that annoyed Carly (she kept sliding down the pillow), it annoyed me even more. I’m a dedicated side sleeper. I usually start on my left side and alternate each time I get up at night. (Hello OCD.) I haven’t been able to sleep on my right side at all since that side definitely got the worst of it and is still sore pretty much 24/7, drugs be damned.

5. Cat are cuddly. Ok, kind of a cop out “duh” bullet point here, but there’s nothing better than looking up from your drugged haze and seeing all kinds of kitties keeping you company. I spent a lot of time in bed the first two days and I usually had one, two, or three furry companions. They say cats can tell when you’re feeling lousy and they tend to hang around you more then.

6. Roads around here SUCK. Driving is still kind of painful. Every bump jostles my jaw around. It doesn’t help that the roads are full of dips and bumps and holes and dents.

7. Tea does a body good. On the day of surgery I was supposed to change the gauze in my mouth every hour and a half or so until it was light pink. I kept up with that but I just would not stop bleeding. Not too surprising really – I have a history of being a gusher. After work Adam went back up to the doctor’s office to get more gauze since we were burning through what they gave us that morning pretty quickly. He came home with some teabags which he proceeded to stick in my mouth. (Wow, does that sound DIRTY out of context or what…) Apparently there’s something in tea that’s supposed to help with clotting. It was interesting… kind of like brewing a really strong cup of tea directly in your mouth. And it seemed to work – it got the bleeding stopped enough that I could take the gauze out overnight.

So that's the main stuff.

This has been the longest week ever. I cannot wait for the day I wake up and don't have an aching face. And two in the afternoon is my new least favorite time. It seems that's the time my jaw decides it's done for the day and it just kills me until I leave work. I think there's something with the AC that bothers it.

Given the choice again, I don't know that I would have had this done. The teeth bothered me occasionally, but it was really not a big deal. The main reason I went through with it is because the teeth were all falling apart anyway and with how teeny my mouth is it made more sense to just rip the suckers out than try and fix them.