~Too Much Wisdom Teeth Information
2006-03-10 - 4:21 p.m.

I had my wisdom teeth out yesterday. The only way I was able to stay calm and keep myself from becoming a gibbering idiot was not to think about any of it. Mum kept saying things like "when you wake up..." and I would have to shush her.

We had to get to the hospital at 7am, but it wasn't until over 3 hours later that they finally took me away to prep me for the operation. Luckily, they'd put some numbing cream on my arm because I HATE needles in the crook of my arm, they make me feel sick, but I didn't feel it at all. I leaned back to wait for what would happen next and found myself with my eyes closed and waking up after it was all over, so that was pretty lucky. I had no chance to get scared at all. When I woke up I was in a lot of pain and I kept shaking and crying, so the nurses had to put more painkiller stuff into my arm three times before I settled down.

It took me a long time to be ready to go home. The nurse asked me a few times after I'd been there awhile and I'd say no, so they'd give me another half hour each time. In the end, the nurses began to annoy me (well, I must've been feeling a bit better), because I went and got dressed and declared myself ready to go home. When I got home I went to the spare room and napped on the couch, which was GREAT and really comfortable, until I slept on my face and caused my mouth to bleed profusely, all over the pillow and all over my face. It still hasn't quite stopped, but it took a constant stream of gauze wads in my cheek. I couldn't really drink anything and it was massively gross. We called the surgeon because it was bleeding so much, but he was reassuring. It was so hard, though, because I hadn't had anything to eat since the previous night and I was so hungry, but I could barely swallow water without it totally grossing me out. There was so much blood.

Overnight I slept propped up and got up a few times to replace the gauze. The first time, I actually must've partiall-woken, because I have this memory of taking out the gauze and throwing it on the floor, and when I woke up properly later it had really happened! I spent the last few hours sleeping without the gauze, but put it in again a few more times this morning. It'd begun to clot more properly, so I finally left it and tried to drink & have some ice cream. The problem was there was this loose, stringy thing coming from the wound and near my throat, and it'd bother me every time I tried to swallow everything. It was terrible because I was starving, but I couldn't even bear to have a drink of water. We went to the surgeon's offices about it. It felt like it was a string of the stitches that was dangling and I was hoping he could snip it. He did snip it, but it wasn't string, it was part of my gum that was clotted with blood!

Anyway, I'm still struggling with all the grossness in my mouth, although it's improved. It's not very swollen on the outside, but my left side, which didn't have the bleeding problem but did have the impacted tooth growing close to the nerve, is swollen on the inside and my teeth and jaws hurt on both sides. I was doing pretty well - I've had ice cream, milkshakes and strained soup. Now I've been grossed out with the story of a guy who used a straw and sucked his clots out. After my experience with the bleeding yesterday, that story has made it impossible to drink through a straw, and it's harder to open my jaw enough to drink normally. Just having anything in my mouth is gross and the act of moving anything round my mouth hurts my jaws.

Despite all of that, and it's a LOT, I'm doing far better than I'd feared. I'd been afraid I'd be good for nothing better than lying on the couch getting the stiffest possible neck, but I've been sitting in the armchair most of the time. I'm terrified of touching anythng in my mouth, though. There was still a lot of numbness yesterday, which made it hard to drink, too, but now it's kinda worse because it hurts more, even though I can drink and kind of eat - ice cream, anyway.

Anyway, I'm feeling rather sorry for myself, although relieved that it's not as bad in some ways as I'd feared - that is, I'm terrified of feeling anything in my mouth, but at least my overall head and body don't feel knocked out and awful.