older and wiser

I got my wisdom teeth out yesterday. Someone said to me, "You won't be wise anymore," to which I replied, "I was never, ever in danger of being considered wise. Wisdom teeth or otherwise."

So this happened--I decided not to do IV sedation because "going under" freaks me out more than intense pain. I guess I just like knowing what's going on. And maybe I'm afraid that when I'm out I'll pee in my pants or say something really embarrassing. A girl's got secrets, you know. So I decided to just do laughing gas and local anesthesia, also for the really embarrassing reason that IV sedation is like, a thousand bucks! I chose a really bad time to quit my sort-of-ok paying job to go to grad school, and move out and start paying rent. I'm full of really awesome ideas. (Reason #300 why I am not wise.)

As it turns out, I am one of those people that has a really bad reaction to laughing gas! Who knew! So I ended up getting all four wisdom teeth extracted, two that were impacted, while I was completely lucid.

It was actually a very cool experience. My mouth was completely numb, and I had all these crazy thoughts while they were extracting my teeth. One was just waiting to feel something, another was, as the oral surgeon was you know, yanking my teeth out of my mouth, thinking that I should ask him if he works out. Also that his name was Brent, which is not a very doctor-y name, and I kept having to remind myself to be calm and breathe out of my nose. I made a rockin' playlist, and it went by really fast, but I listened to a great combo of Mumford and Sons, the Black Lips, and the Devil Makes Three. And you know, I would love to take a poll on like, how much people like when their dentists talk to them while they're digging around in their mouth. I mean, every time the guy said, "sorry about that" I felt the need to be like, "oh it's fine" which a) of course it wasn't, and b) I wasn't going to be able to say that anyway.

Also I had this really funny thought while they were drilling through my teeth, with a drill, that was like, "what if I accidentally move my tongue into the drill and he cuts it off!" which is the same type of thought I have while walking down the lab bays at work. I always think, "oh my gosh, what if I accidentally kick someone's chair while they sit in it and screw up all their experiments." And I was thinking to myself, "Man, that's really enough drilling, don't you think?" as if now was a good time to practice positive thinking and self-actualization.


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L asked me if the tooth fairy was going to come and visit, and I laughed, and said, "maybe", and then thought, "oh jeez I have to be a tooth fairy at some point, and that is something they never tell you about when you're going to be a parent the hidden costs of parenthood." Except what I was really thinking was that the tooth fairy paid for my wisdom teeth to come out, which was actually a really great deal because the anesthesiologist said almost conspiratorially, "I didn't charge you for the nitrous oxide."


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I'd like to think I have a really high pain tolerance, but I think it's really more that I have a really-high-being-uncomfortable tolerance, which I'm trying to think of practical uses in the real world, and I can think of a couple, but none that will really get me ahead in life.


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L thinks this is all funny, that I'm "a little sick" but without any germs. And other than intense boredom and hunger, I haven't minded the recovery at all. It's actually giving me flashbacks to after I had Lena. I just kind of hung out and watched Gilmore Girls and marveled at this...baby...that I somehow landed responsibility of. (Note bad grammar and passive voice. that is completely how I would describe having a newborn. No time for correct sentence structure, and you're really just taking shit as it's thrown at you.)


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Anyway, summer is almost here. My job ends next week. Crazy shit has been happening, and I am just bulldozing through life, it feels like. I feel like I'm going to run some things over, and I'm definitely getting some bumps and bruises of my own on the way, but hey, apparently I have a really high tolerance for being really uncomfortable!