Bedtime Rant: Teeth, Christmas, and the Emergency Wake-Up Call

Forgive my absence.

I’ve been laid up after needing emergency oral surgery this past weekend. It all started with some pain back in early October that only lasted for a few days. Then it sparked up again late last week.

Early Saturday morning around 6:30, I woke up to this awful pain in the back of my mouth, on the left-hand side, which was the same pain I’d been having off and on since October.

By 8:15, I’d taken two Vicodin that I had left over from my previous visit to the dentist and the pain had yet to subside, even slightly. At this point, I realized what had to happen — these teeth had to be taken care of.

So I called up the dentist office with the knowledge that it’s open every other Saturday (and I prayed that it was on of those days). After two quick rings, a woman answered in a friendly voice, “thank you for calling North Scottsdale Family Dentistry, this is Keneisha speaking, how may I help you?”

Fast forward to me sitting in the chair, numb as hell, and slowly slipping under into a nitrous oxide induced trance.

“We were going to extract the top wisdom tooth and do a pulpotomy on the lower molar, unfortunately however, we’re going to have to remove three of the teeth and just give you implants instead, can you please sign here saying you understand this?” the sparkly blonde dental assistant says, handing me a pen and paper attached to a clipboard.

I knew I wouldn’t be getting the implants today but I also knew that I’d be leaving here without three of my teeth. The upper wisdom and molar next to it, and the lower molar next to the impacted bottom wisdom tooth, which now sits as a lone ranger in that part of my mouth.

When I had my lower right wisdom tooth and the molar next to it removed 2½ years ago, I was put under local anesthetics and had no pain following the procedure. Plus, I had no dry sockets, no excessive bleeding, and no real discomfort other than the limitations of a liquid-only diet. So I figured this procedure would go just as smoothly.

Well, it did of course, except that it would not stop bleeding and no amount or concoction of wet gauze or tea bags was going to hold this bloody clot into place. By this point, I’m ready to die because I had to care for myself. Other than Miree being so kind as to go grocery shopping for and Andy & Chris stopping by with some apple juice and extra gauze, I was on my own with this one.

After 36 hours of failed attempts at getting the blood to clot, I decided to try one last tactic: to keep my mouth shut — literally. So for the remainder of the day yesterday, I laid on my new Ikea couch watching Charles in Charge and kept my jaw firmly in place.

Low and behold it worked! I’m on the road to recovery and back in almost full working order — this liquid diet is starting to get to me. All I want is fluffy pancakes with spicey sausage or a bowl full of potato chips! In due time, I keep telling myself.

I’m not really mad that I had to go through this kind of thing because, unfortunately, bad teeth run in my family. I swear we’re British but I’m sure I’m wrong about that — regardless of my English last name. At least I’m getting pretty new and healthy teeth and will no longer have to deal with this kind of obnoxious pain.

In other news.

As a last minute plan, thanks in part to my parents, I’m now going home for Christmas and New Years. The catch is that I’ll be flying on Christmas Day. I certainly do not mind nor can I possibly complain about my date of travel, because I will be home with Ben, and of course my parents, and the rest of my friends which is all I truly wanted; that and a delicious meatball sub from Wawa.

I’ll be in New Jersey-Philadelphia from the 25th until the 2nd of January. It’s been snowing like crazy around my old neck of the woods and I’m used to the cool fall breeze of an Arizona winter, so I’m not really looking forward to trekking through the snow or freezing my ass off — but sacrifices I must pay in order to be with the ones I love.

Just a reminder.

Tomorrow is Top-Five Tuesday and I will be posting one hell of a list. With the help of my friend Lauren Pittaro and an unsuspecting Facebook friend, I’ve compiled a list of things that I’m hoping many of you out there can relate to and possibly be inspired by. Stay tuned!