System 13

Despite all of the advice I was given, I worried an awful lot about having my wisdom teeth taken out. Now that it’s over, I feel a bit silly. It’s not that the memory of having them taken out is “better” than what I imagined it would be like, but rather, I just don’t have any memory of it at all.

Once I was in the surgery suite, they did the usual prep stuff: oxygen, blood pressure, and a variety of those little sticky pads to monitor things, for example, how many of my arm hairs would be ripped off when the pads were removed. They put an IV into my right hand, through which I’d be given the drugs to make me less awake than a sack of potatoes.

And then I remember being more or less dragged out the back of the building to our car. My memory of this is auditory only, strangely enough; “Josh, you need to straighten your legs; you need to stand up, Josh.” No visual memory at all to go along with that.

What happened in between, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t remember them putting in the torture-like device that would hold my mouth open during surgery, nor do I remember being told that they were going to start up the general anaesthesia. Whether the doctor and his nurses removed my wisdom teeth, or whether they called in a crack team of surgery monkeys, I’ve no idea.

While I’m still quite sore and more than a little swollen, it’s not nearly as bad as I expected. I was able to eat 4 or 5 hours after the surgery (Jello); later, I added some variety (heh) with pudding and a tiny bit of icecream. I wasn’t brave enough to try mashed potatoes yesterday, as I was afraid they were still a bit too stiff for me. Maybe today.