words of wisdom

Warning: If you have aversions to dental treatment and drilling sounds in general... Now is the time to face your fears and read on!! (evil grin)

just back from the wisdom tooth extraction. it's the sort of thing that is so mentally and physically exhausting you just need to tell somebody.. anybody.. about it. (and yes, yes, i mean write about it - i can only make inaudible noises right now, with all that bloody (pun intended) gauze stuffed up the right side of my mouth!)

due to a combination of dense bones and the fact that the tooth in question had two curved roots and a real tight grip, the procedure took longer than expected - about one and a half hours instead of the estimated half an hour. one would have thought that one would be suitably conditioned for tooth extractions after having had four pre-molars removed during days of metallic orthodontic grins, but this turned out to be quite the ultimate test of endurance... there was a lot of what sounded like drilling (well, actually it was sawing, which doesn't sound any better :-D)... the tooth was cut into three and taken out in three separate parts. there was a lot of major pulling, jaw ache, plus the nagging anxiety that at any second the anaesthetic may wear out (am afraid i don't really have a high threshold for pain.. see other local-anaesthesia stories here..)

so, after endless rounds of tugging and sawing at the tooth and altogether 6 jabs of local anaesthetic (apparently 2 jabs are usually sufficient) you wouldn't believe the relief when the last piece of tooth finally came out.

the tooth fairy had better give me a blank cheque for this.