Orality

This morning. I had some of my wisdom teeth pulled. Naturally I was a little worried seeing as how I don't like surgery. Weird huh?

The night before the surgery I decided to use the internet to find out just how long my recovery time might be. At first, I thought this was a mistake since I had stumbled upon some horror stories about people's jaws breaking during surgery. After a brief panic and trying to think of ways to get around my death at the hands of someone who statistically might already be having thoughts of suicide, I began to find some internet bloggers whom began to assure me that everything was going to be fine.

What intially made me so paranoid I found out was that I was looking on the wrong websites. Starting out with sites like Web M.D, I was only being barraged with the opinions of people above the age of 30. You know, people who are typically seen as "Mature Adults." This group of people seemed to be afraid of everything. Not only had they heard stories about jaws being broken during surgery, but that the medicine prescribed to them was causing them to slip into fortnight long comas. (I have always wanted to use fortnight in a sentence so back off.)

Yet, while the mature adults were mainly concerned with just living through the teeth pulling ordeal, I soon found that the younger generation of bloggers brought me more joy than I could have ever imagined to find on the internet.

Most of the younger generation of bloggers were mainly concerened with whether they could go to a party that night. They are well aware that the doctors urge patients to get plenty of rest and take good care of their mouths. Yet, social suicide appears to be more daunting to them than a wee bit of "Dry Socket." Also why sit and home and watch Turner Classic Movies hopped up on Vicodine, when you can just take the pills with your alcohol and play a little game called, "I hope I wake up in the morning." Although I knew these kids were quite stupid, their mildly educated words gave me comfort throughout the night.

When the surgery came around, I was ready. I was mentally prepared and convinced that I would walk out of the office feeling simply fantastic. This new mindset was quite comforting to me and it carried me all the way until I got into the actual chair and was shown a video about the things that "may go wrong" during the surgery.
Now I am all for patients being informed about all the prodding that a doctor will be inflicting on their body, but I feel as though it should be somewhat sugar coated unless otherwise specified by the patient.

The surgeon could have told me soon he would given me a lollipop that once I finished the entire treat that my teeth would have magically disappeared painfree and I would have been thrilled. Although I know it was a blatant lie, I would have appreciated the comfort and been happy that he wasn't too far along in his dental depression to still find the happiness to make a few quips.

However, he chose to show me a video that informed me that I may never again experience things such as: taste, feeling in my lips, sinus comfort, the ability to stop bleeding, the joy that comes from a beating heart, and other things of that nature. This litany of pain again put me in a state of discomfort. Yet, I found out the reason why they show you that film before the surgery. The reason is this, it really doesn't matter what they show you before the surgery because once they get the drugs in you, your thoughts don't matter.

As soon as I was mainlined with the morphine or whatever sedative was given to me, my fears just melted away. The only thing I remember of the surgery was that there were a couple of pairs of hands in my mouth at one time. Apparently the sedative was strong because I could not have been more delighted with the taste of latex and having my mouth stretched to its limits.

Once I came to, the surgery was over. My mouth was full of gauze and I could not believe that the surgery had concluded. I no longer cared about the macabre details of my surgery, I just told myself that the magical lollipop had abraded my mouth till it was raw.

In the end, you can spend all of your life fretting about surgery, or you just can fix your mind on things such as drugs. I know that sentence probably doesn't fly with parents or any of the bloggers over 30 on Web M.D. But, as long as the anesthetics are strong, worrying won't do you any good. Let's just be thankful that when we don't walk into a doctor's office they don't just hand us a bottle of hard alcohol and say, "Let's see what we can do." Cause in those days there is a good chance that that sentence really meant, "You should have probably just ignored the pain because I am most likely going to kill you."

P.S. - I know this joke is probably extremely old, but why are they called wisdom teeth? Cause when a dentist says, "You got some wisdom teeth coming in." We're sitting in the chair thinking, "Good, it's about time." So it's naturally a shock when they want to take them out.
I say from an early age the dentist should call these teeth, "Evil Death Teeth." Cause then patients would probably be more eager to try to get them extracted. Consequently, dentists would get paid more since more people would be lining up to get their, "Evil Death Teeth" taken away. That would boost the economy and we'll be out of this recession in no time.

See, you may find most of my posts to be vain and self-indulgent, but at least you'll have something to talk about at your next dinner party since pretty much the econonmy is all anyone talks about anymore.