• I awoke with gigantic chipmunk cheeks. Regular icepacks have helped the pain and soreness, but the swelling is still pretty bad. No bruising, however.
• I’m not sure why, but my stitches have enough slack for me to practically go fishing with. I could actually eat a wider variety of things if I didn’t have to worry about bits of food getting wrapped up in my fishing wire. If I were braver I’d snip some of the slack off, but considering I’ve been on hydrocodone, that’s probably not a good idea.
• For those who are in a similar situation, I’ve found “Chicken and Stars” to be quite edible; practically no chewing required! Chicken and noodles was a total flop, due to the noodles doing battle with my stitches.
• Related to my eating options: it’s true. Take any food you love – eat it enough, and you’ll start to hate it. By the time I’m healed up, I may avoid pudding, mashed potatoes, and soup for quite some time. I’m even getting sick of ice cream, which I previously thought to be an impossibility.

And now, time for some more quality time with my icepack.

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.

While talking to the nurse at the oral surgeon’s office, I asked her if I would be allowed to keep my wisdom teeth. I was serious in the request; I figured it’d be nifty to have them in a container on my desk or something. That way I could always claim to have at least some wisdom, even if it was sitting in a cup somewhere. That’s never to be, however; the nurse told me that I’m not allowed to keep my teeth, as they’re required by law to dispose of them as a biohazard.

What’s up with this? I distinctly remember as a kid being given my teeth from the dentist, handed over in little plastic teeth-shaped containers. At what age does a tooth transition from being something we’re allowed to keep to “oh noes, biohazard!”?

Unfortunately, not all of my spring break plans revolve around lazing in the sun with a good book. I recently went to the dentist complaining of some sharp pain in one of my molars. The verdict? No cavities, but it’s time for my wisdom teeth to be taken out. My top wisdom teeth have been in for years now, hanging low and generally being a pain to keep clean. My bottoms are just now starting to come in, which is apparently what was making my tooth hurt. My bottoms are laying almost completely horizontal rather than vertical, so “coming in” really translates to “ramming into the rest of my teeth.” Ow, in other words.

So as to not miss any classes due to pain medication or other such issues, I’m scheduled to have them out on Monday, the 22nd – the first real day of spring break. What a way to celebrate, no?

I’m nervous about it; the dentist told me that as long as I do what they tell me to, it won’t be too bad. Of course, on the flipside of things, whenever I’ve told anyone else about getting the teeth removed, their first response is a grimace, followed by something like “I had mine out when I was X years old, it was awful.” Thanks for the encouragement, folks.

My other, more enjoyable plan for spring break is to read The Third Reich at War by Evans. It’s the follow-up to The Third Reich in Power, which I thought was excellent. The Third Reich at War comes out on the 19th, but for some reason, a number of libraries in the OhioLINK system already have copies. I’ve already requested one.

What are your plans for the opening weeks of spring?