Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Losing some Wisdom

I remember watching an episode of the cartoon Sabrina the Teenage Witch when I was in grade school where Sabrina's wisdom teeth were coming in.  As a young witch, she didn't see why she had to do have the mortal operation.  She didn't want to suffer any pain, swelling and overall unpleasantness from the surgery.  Naturally, as a young witch she decided to magic them out.  This, however, led to other complications. With her wisdom teeth magically removed, Sabrina starts making extremely stupid and dangerous decisions--as though she has actually lost her wisdom.  In the end has to magic her wisdom teeth back in order to have the mortal surgery.

All this to say that I got my wisdom teeth removed last week.  Maybe I was channeling my inner Sabrina, but I really wished I could magic my teeth away without having to go under.  I was terrified.  Call me a big baby, but I was more scared of going to the surgeon's last week than I am about my upcoming move to South Korea.  Maybe it's because I have a good imagination and the thought of the pain and discomfort was too vivid. 

Peu importe!

I walked into the office with sweaty palms and a nauseous stomach.  Good thing you're not allowed to eat 8 hours before the surgery!  The nurse asked me some questions, hooked me up to an I/V, we chatted... it was almost time... she put in the anaesthetic... and then it was over.  I was waking up to a frozen face.

While I won't deny being terrified, I will admit that the whole procedure, and even the follow-up couple of days, were not as bad as I thought they would be.  I didn't even need a lot of pain medication.  The worst part was that I wasn't allowed to do anything that would get my heart rate going.  I couldn't even walk my dog.  I was stuck at home and that was B-O-R-I-N-G.  That and I really missed chewing.  I didn't think that chewing was something you could miss until all I ate was yogurt and soup for 48 hours--really, not even a terribly long time, but long enough.  

I just wanted to bite into something!


At least now, my wisdom teeth are not something I will have to worry about.  And I suppose I learned something from the whole procedure, too.

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