The Oral Surgery Blues

I've probably mentioned before that I have braces. I got them in the summer as part of my effort to start putting myself first. I've long been self conscious about my smile and finally got the nerve up to take the plunge in June.

It actually hasn't been so bad except that it takes me a ton of time to get my teeth clean between meals. My treatment has been progressing well, so on Wednesday, it was time to get some oral surgery. My two top adult incisors never came down, so doc had to go in and make them. The woman who made my appointment convinced me I wouldn't need anesthesia. She said, "seven-year-olds get this done with Novocaine all the time!" I acquiesced.

What I didn't realize was that the bone in a seven-year-old's face is much softer and peels away from the teeth easily. However, once I hit my twenties, everything hardened up. Consequently, I laid in the chair for three hours while doc ground down my bone with a drill and said that in twenty years he'd never seen such badly impacted teeth. Awesome.

Days later, I'm still in a lot of pain. I can eat solid foods, but since I also had to have two bicuspids removed from the bottom, eating is complicated. I'm finding that tomato soup and sugar free jello cups aren't doing much to fill me up and I'm struggling to resist an ice cream binge.

I'm also on Vicodin which is making me incredibly loopy and tired so I'm cutting this short. I hope everyone has a great weekend! And just a word of advice: if you're an otherwise healthy adult getting oral surgery, spring for the anesthesia!