Removing a wisdom tooth. Part I: The experience

It all started as an innocent trip to Taiwan, but the experience is unforgettable. A couple of days after I got here, the leftmost area of my teeth was in pain. Specifically, the area just above the lower wisdom tooth was painful whenever I eat something. In addition, I get this intermittent sharp pain in my left head. I thought sure enough, this happened before, it would go away in a couple of days. That didn't happen. Come this Monday, my mom got me into a dentist appointment to look at it (the dentist had a full schedule, but I squeezed in somehow). Turns out that my upper wisdom tooth bit on the wall around the lower wisdom tooth, and it got infected. The suggestion: remove the wisdom teeth. This came up ten years ago at the same place, where the other dentist then did not want to remove them for me because of possible danger. But now it appears it is impossible to avoid it now...but because of the awkward way that my wisdom teeth have grown, it requires a specialist to do it. But since it would take a week to recover and my flight out is in a week and two days, it is essential to have it done on Tuesday. But of course the specialist's schedule is full, but somehow I managed to squeeze into the schedule and after an x-ray check up, I was indeed scheduled to have my two left wisdom teeth removed on Tuesday.

I was calm and collected going into the dental specialist's office, ready for the removal. Or so I thought. I was actually a little bit nervous, but the fact that this surgery is taking place didn't sink in until the anesthetics drugged half my mouth. I was a bit woozy, but I was assured that I wouldn't feel any pain, even though I would know what the dentist was doing. After some anticipation, the surgery started. A piece of cloth with the mouth area open was put on my face, so I couldn't see the dentist and the nurse, but I could certainly hear them and feel what they were doing. What followed was a violent mix of cutting, drilling and pulling of my tooth. The nurse kept saying "you'll feel some pressure" and then the dentist would cut in with a lot of force and then try to pull it out. I could feel that he was struggling to get it out. Even though I was promised I would feel no pain, I did feel some pain during the surgery. I tried to endure it rather than asking them to stop and slow the progress, and of course eventually the news that the tooth was out was very welcomed by me. I was so tense by then. Whenever I think back to the procedure, I feel all squeamish and uncomfortable...like right now. The sewing up of the wounds was ok. After it was done, the dentist decided that he would not take out the upper wisdom tooth, for fear that it might be too difficult and take too much time. So I was certainly very relieved...little did I know, it wasn't over yet.

The nurse put a cotton cloth in the area where my tooth used to be in. After explaining what I should be doing (lots of things), we left. This was also when an extraordinary pain started. Biting on the cloth caused this continuous pain that, while not extremely painful, it hurt enough that I just wanted to get that thing out as quickly as possible. I couldn't describe how it felt...but I couldn't take it. I couldn't distract myself so I don't feel the pain. Every second felt excruciatingly long, and I had to keep that thing in for 3 hours. I used an ice thing to soothe the pain, but it was only temporary 10-second relief every time. I was very depressed, and couldn't stay still. Eventually, of course, time came to get it out, and indeed it felt slightly better. But still the pain lingers on, and I was struggling to find a reason to live. I ended up just staying in bed for the night, but I couldn't sleep much since I had to take medicine every 4 hours. Thankfully, by the time I finally woke up in the morning, the pain is mostly gone. And I thank God for the quick dissipation of the pain. My mom says the painkiller medicine that I took worked quickly since I rarely take any medicine at all. Maybe that's true... But yeah, that was such an incredible experience. I'm still shaking my head as to what I went through. Now...some reflections on my next post (which would be the post on top of this).