The Epic Saga of My Wisdom Teeth Part 1

Disclaimer: Everything that follows is absolutely true. Really. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

The events of this past week need to be documented for eternity. In any case, I’m sure it will provide at least some entertainment to anyone who happens to stumble on it.

Last weekend I was down in Waterloo to visit friends and play for Naismith with the Band. Very very early Sunday morning, I got up, rolled off the couch, got ready to leave to catch the bus and proclaimed that I felt like I was coming down with something. This was attributed to the fact that I had had less than three hours of sleep.

Turns out that I was indeed coming down with something.

On the insanely long bus ride from Toronto to Sudbury, my mouth started to hurt. I brushed it off.

Monday. Monday was the day I discovered that Advil would make the pain go away and allow me to function relatively normally. Unfortunately for me I didn’t discover this until after I got home from work. I also bought popsicles. They were tasty. I decided that if my mouth wasn’t better in the morning then I would phone the dentist that a guy at work had recommended to me and get in ASAP, because I was fairly sure this was an infected wisdom tooth.

At this point we noticed that the fridge wasn’t very cold, so we turned up the compressor and went to bed. We being my housemates and I.

Tuesday morning, I phoned the dentist, grabbed my trusty bottle of Advil, and went to work. The earliest time I could get in was Wednesday morning.

Finished up at work, walked home cursing my teeth all the while, then went to grab a popsicle. And discovered that I didn’t have any more. What I had instead was bags of liquid with sticks in them.

Yup, the fridge had gone to that big gourmet kitchen in the sky. I had earlier decided that due to my continuing dependence on Advil to function at a somewhat reasonable level, I would skip karate and take a nap. Karate is awesome, but so are naps, especially when an accidental light punch (or kick) in the face would have you on the floor whimpering like a guy who's just taken a direct hit to, erm, sensitive areas.

Instead I spent the evening throwing out spoiled meat and coming up with interesting combinations of curse words. So much for my nap.

The dentist was Wednesday. Was given a prescription for what I consider to be large amounts of penicillin and told to haul ass to the nearest pharmacy. Bear in mind that I’ve only had penicillin twice in my life before this, and was considered to be allergic for quite some time. However, I did have an allergy test for penicillin and was declared able to take the stuff. No problems there.

Until I discovered that taking penicillin left me with heartburn, mild nausea, and shortness of breath when climbing stairs. Not hard exercising, CLIMBING STAIRS.

I waited Thursday to see if the side effects would go away. They didn’t, and my teeth still hurt. I skipped karate again.

Now this is the best part of the whole deal.

Friday morning I phoned the dentist I had originally gone to. She offered to phone in a stronger antibiotic, but I said I would think about it, since up until now nobody had actually told me what was going on and I wanted a second opinion.

That was my first mistake.

My second mistake was phoning the local dental association to see who was on call that day. The receptionist there gave me a number, I called and they said to come in as soon as possible.

My third mistake was actually going.

I walked into this guy’s office. The building was in downtown Sudbury, and several other offices in there were vacant. Walked into his office, and I SWEAR it was straight out of the fifties. I could not for the life of me shake the feeling that I had stepped into a James Herriot story. The magazines were recent but that’s about it. Explained what was going on, that the antibiotics weren’t working and I wanted a second opinion. Dentist-guy, who looked at least 60, took a look.

It’s an infected wisdom tooth alright. So he wanted to take an x-ray to make sure it wasn’t impacted.

You know how dental film has that tab on one side that you can bite down on to hold it in place while taking the x-ray? None of that for this guy! No, I had to hold the film in place while he ran out of the room and took the x-ray. This was AFTER he had jammed it in my already sore mouth.

Every time I go to the dentist, I gag ONCE on the film. Then I’m fine. I tried to warn this guy. I really did.

Then the kicker:

“It’s not impacted. If you want, I can freeze you and take IT OUT RIGHT NOW! No problems!”

Now, if there is one thing I am absolutely terrified of, it is needles in my mouth. Just regular needles I can usually handle, but not in my mouth. My regular dentist knows this and tries to work around it whenever he possibly can. My reply was remarkably restrained.

“HELL NO.”

“Don’t worry about the needle! I’ve done HUNDREDS of these! I can handle WHATEVER YOU THROW AT ME!”

“You are not coming ANYWHERE NEAR ME with a needle. Apart from the fact that I will have a panic attack in this chair if you try and freeze me, I need to check what my insurance will cover. No, sir, if I have my wisdom teeth out anytime soon, I want sedation.”

“Well, if you want a general anesthetic, you need to book now because you’ll need to go to the hospital for it and I don’t deal with the hospitals any more, they keep…”

He continues in this vein for some time. At this point my well-honed bullshit alarm is going off and has been for some time. I told him I needed to check insurance, paid my bill and walked back to work.

Since I had obviously been fairly upset, D wandered over to my cubicle. D asked how it went, and I told him. Then J wandered over. When he found out who I had gone to, the first thing out of his mouth was:

“Isn’t that the guy who used to be the vet?”

I called the first dentist I had gone to that afternoon and got my prescription changed to something that was not penicillin.

I woke up this morning (Saturday) feeling much, much better, and I’m no longer having to take Advil. The wisdom teeth will have to come out eventually, probably this Christmas, but I’m sure that when they do there’ll be another interesting story or two.

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried

On of my wisdom teeth has been bothering me lately, to the point where I can tell you exactly where the bottle of Advil is at any time of the day whether or not I've had my coffee yet. In an attempt to stay off painkillers if at all possible, I bought a box of what were some tasty popsicles yesterday.

I say were, because they are no more, and no, I didn't eat them all.

The fridge died.

Pretty much everything in there was ruined. Including my popsicles.

Back to the Advil.

I need home for a rest...

I'm going to the Sault for Thanksgiving.
I'm leaving very very early tomorrow.
I haven't started packing yet.
I'll be back Tuesday.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend.