I’ve been a little under the weather lately.
And by under the weather, I mean had a wisdom tooth pulled with only local anesthesia. I’m kindof a badass like that.
It went fairly well, and I am happy with my decision, because if I had really wanted to be put under, I would have had to wait several more days, and I couldn’t endure any more anticipatory anxiety coupled with increasingly crippling wisdom-tooth-induced headaches. That, and general anesthesia reminds me of my cancer surgery, and that’s a very bad thing.
So now I just settle for post-wisdom-tooth-being-ripped-out-of-my-head headaches.
Seriously, who thought up an 8 hour dosage painkiller? I was prescribed Motrin that can be taken once every 8 hours (well, to be honest, I was actually given a choice between Vicodin, Tylenol with codeine, or juiced-up Motrin. I actually had to think about this one, cuz hey – street value, peeps – but I decided I’d like to be able to drive myself to work and not slur my words in front of my clients. And I actually made this choice post-extraction. I know- I should be given a medal or something.). I also have to take these meds after eating something, and I descend from mid-western folk. Allow me to translate: we eat our three squares with minimal snacking or else we get the hose. Or get locked out of the house in the snow with no shoes, but that’s tough in some parts of Northern California, so the hose it is.
So let’s think about this for a second. My workday is 8 hours long, so I guess I’ll take a pill right after breakfast but before I get to work so that it’ll kick in once I get there and have to deal with crises related to violence and suffering. Good start. Unfortunately, the label lies (said in Voldemort’s voice) and the magic wears off around hour 7 and 14.3 minutes, so in the middle of my last session of the day, the gaping hole in my gums starts throbbing and spreads through my occipital lobe and ravages the [small] part of my brain that houses sanity. Sorry, client, but I can no longer hear you over the din of a box of live kittens being seared by turbo jet exhaust. Fast forward to 5pm-quitting time. By this time it’s too close to dinner to snack (my mother’s voice reverberates in my already pulsating head…something something spoil your dinner…) and I can’t take my next goddamn pill until I eat something. So here I am, speeding home, trying to see the road through my blinding pain.
Once I get home and eat and take my pill, I start to feel better. More like a human. I think my horns and red eyes actually shrink and fade, respectively. I go to sleep after rinsing my mouth with salt water for what feels like the zillionth time that day (more on that later), and I hope to she-sus that I don’t wake up when my pill wears off in the middle of the night because it only lasts for 8 fucking hours and I took it right after dinner because I couldn’t wait and because I don’t fucking eat right before fucking bedtime.
Wake up, repeat, and feel my pain. FEEL IT NOW.
Also take into account that I must rinse my mouth with warm salt water every time I eat. Makes me feel like a fish, but not the drunk kind.
The icing on the cake is that, while I have a bit of swelling and that is to be expected, I also have some bruising on my cheek where the dentist very roughly wrenched my drooling, completely numb mouth open and braced with crazy force to basically pull bone from bone. So I’ve been going to work, seeing clients who are survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and one side of my face is bruised and swollen. This is going to be great for business.
I feel like I should wear a sign around my neck. Maybe I’ll attach a doctor’s note for further proof. FML.
Psychobabble 