A tale of two molars

My dental surgery went ahead as planned yesterday. Everyone was nice to me (including all of you, thanks for all the encouragement and practical advice) and the dental surgeon seemed to be in an upbeat mood, although maybe not quite as chipper as the breast doctor.

As for the surgery itself, I survived but if I could only use one word to describe it, it would be: Eeew. No one should have to listen to those kinds of scraping and sawing sounds in their own mouths. The whole time I was praying the dental surgeon wouldn’t have a heart attack before finishing the job because I could just imagine the state of my gums after he'd been at it for a half hour.

But enough said about that.

When it was over I was reeling from the one of the most invasive surgeries I’ve ever had while the doctor was remarking about how trivial it was as dental surgeries go while removing his blood-soaked gloves. Another reminder that everyone has a different yet valid perspective.

One day later, I’m remarkably free of pain or swelling and am permitted to eat whatever I want, although the smooth plastic protector snapped in the roof of my mouth kind of kills the love on that. I have pain medication, anti-swelling medication and an antiseptic gargle.

This is way better than the time I had my wisdom teeth removed and couldn’t go to Disneyland with the (then) love of my life who was visiting LA with his parents during college break because my entire head swelled up to the size of a basketball. It turned out later he was gay so it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway but I had no way of knowing that then and was really bummed. Not to mention deformed for a whole week.

The worst part is that I AM NOT ALLOWED TO DRINK COFFEE FOR FIVE DAYS. They told me this after the operation. Good thing, too, because that would have been a deal breaker.

The reason is that it gets your circulations moving and that can make the stitches bleed, which can interfere with healing. They did give reluctant permission for me to have a cuppa in the morning but I don't want to take any unnecessary chances because I certainly don’t want to do this again, at least not on the same side.

It sucks. All I can think about is coffee, coffee, coffee… lovely, milky, hot, strong COFFEE.

So my day today is all about not drinking coffee. And counting the minutes until the coffee embargo is lifted. And wondering if the graft will be successful when they take out the stitches next week.

OK, time to gargle. Wishing all of you good dental health.