Wisdom Teeth.

I recently had my wisdom teeth removed. All four of them. At once. It’s during my month of mouth madness, in which I also had four sessions of root canal therapy and am soon to have crown placed on a tooth. I’d known all of this was coming for a while, my dentist had told me that the root canal and the wisdom teeth would have to be dealt with but “don’t worry about it yet”. He was saying this to me for about two years. I think that’s why I keep going back to him – I appreciate having a medical professional who makes my procrastination look tame. Then one day he looked in my mouth, sighed, and said “We’re really going to have to do something about this now. I’ll write you a referral.” I was taken aback. He’d told me it wasn’t urgent so many times that it’d become part of regular conversation:
“Hi, how are you? How was your weekend? Nice weather outside isn’t it? You don’t need to worry about your wisdom teeth yet. Did you see that documentary on meerkats?”
I’d gotten so used to it, that it no longer registered that something actually would have to be done. I’d started to assume I’d always be in a state of dental limbo. It was like the time I saw celebrity vet Dr Harry Cooper walking down the street – I’d grown up with him on the television, telling me the pros and cons of different pets, so to see him full sized, in three dimensions was bizarre. He couldn’t be real, he’d lived in the television for the last twenty years. I couldn’t have to get my wisdom teeth out, I didn’t need to worry about it yet.

Referrals in hand, I no longer had my dentist as an excuse to put off the procedure. I had to put it off all on my own. I couldn’t possibly have the teeth taken out in January, because I was going to Adelaide. I couldn’t have it done in February, because I was starting a new job and it wouldn’t make a great impression to ask for a week off as soon as I started (despite the fact that my boss is incredibly understanding and in fact wouldn’t have cared). Couldn’t have it done in March, because I was going to Melbourne… And so on and so on. Then I ran out of excuses. In fact, I suddenly had every reason to get them out right away. The timing was perfect.

I am not an organised person. I am tidy, but I’m not organised. A lot of people seem to mistake neatness for organisation. Everything in my room has a specific place, but when arranging a time to meet a friend I’ll need them to repeat our agreement to me several times to reassure myself that I remember what we’ve said, then I’ll write it on a piece of paper and stick it on the door of my wardrobe. I’ll also put a reminder in my phone. I’ve given up on having a diary because I only wrote appointments in it after they had happened. And any appointment that I wrote in the diary in advance was bound to be cancelled. It was as though I was jinxing it by committing to it. So to suddenly be faced with making multiple dental appointments at several different locations was somewhat intimidating for a person like me. Not to mention warning my boss so that she could roster me to work appropriately and making sure that I didn’t plan to have my teeth taken out the day before a particularly awesome party. There were many factors to be taken into account. So of course I ignored them all, picked a date at random and hoped for the best.

It’s interesting that as soon as you tell people you’re going to get your wisdom teeth out, they feel compelled to tell you stories of it going wrong. Interesting is the wrong word. Perhaps unhelpful is a better way of putting it. Just like the best stories from travelling are the ones where everything falls apart, the same seems to apply to dental procedures. Sure they mean well, but the trouble is, regardless of how well the story is told, it’s not particularly amusing for the person about to undergo the surgery. I’d never had anything remotely surgical done to me before. Never been to hospital, never broken a bone, which is quite impressive considering how often I run into things. So in the days before the procedure, I was freaked. And my mother, of all people, was the biggest culprit. She told me stories of how her mouth wouldn’t stop bleeding, she fainted as soon as she got home, her mother and sister had to carry her up the stairs, and the same would undoubtedly happen to me since I had her genetic material. Great. Thanks mum.

For all the stress beforehand, I must say that the procedure itself was completely uneventful. I’d go so far as to say it was boring. One minute the anaesthetist was injecting my hand, the next I’m in a completely different room and the nurse is telling me I have to open my mouth so she can get the gauze out. What happened in between? I have no idea. And I’m glad of that. Now I’m minus four teeth, which honestly is a relief, because they were a damn nuisance. When I made the appointment to have my wisdom teeth extracted, I just wanted to get in there and have them get out. But after all the dramatic stories I heard, it was almost disappointing to have the procedure go exactly as planned. No horrific stories for me. Everything was fine and dandy. What a shame. Perhaps something terrible will happen when I go to get a crown on my tooth. Fingers crossed...

(Note: I don't actually want anything to go wrong when I get a crown on my tooth. That's just silly.)