wisdom teeth

I mismanaged my mush

If that isn’t the perfect blog post title, I dunno what is.

As I mentioned, the hardest part of having my wisdom teeth removed has been the lack of real food. I am not a fan of starvation. Despite a fully recovered appearance, my mouth remains extremely tender. I can only handle mush. And it turns out that mush requires a certain forethought. For someone who never cooks and only buys bougie packaged meals at the grocery store or the cafeteria, that is a problem. My entire approach to nutrition is based on making reasonably healthy choices at a moment’s notice, with whatever is immediately available to me. Now I am forced to not only think about it, but in most cases exert some effort in the preparation of the consumables. And yes, I consider adding a scoop of protein powder to a bowlful of yogurt to be effort – because that means making sure I have access to yogurt AND packing a serving of protein power AND finding a spoon. SO. MUCH. WORK.

Thursday I stayed at work late, missing my chance to go to the grocery store and get one of their delicious custom soups for lunch the next day. Friday at work, I ran out of instant oatmeal. Oye. I didn’t see the time fly, and by the time I made it to the cafeteria for lunch, they were closing shop. I got a bowl of their vegetable broth. Oye. By 4pm, I was light-headed from hunger. My coworkers offered me snacks, but no-go: granola bars, nuts, carrots and dip… non-mush. No bueno. By 6pm, I gave up. I had spent 3 hours typing a total of 7 sentences. The brain could not function. I admitted defeat. Time to go home and eat.

Convo with TooWhite on my way to the grocery store

It’s a well known adage to never do grocery shopping when hungry. But doing grocery shopping while hungry and UNABLE TO EAT ANY FOOD? Awful.

I settled on a lentil stew (not soup! Woohoo, big girl food!), some freshly pressed fruit smoothies, and for dessert, prune yogurt. I like prune yogurt. I find it tastes like what chocolate yogurt should taste like.

I inhaled the lentil stew.

2 fruit smoothies? Disappeared.

I was still hungry. I knew I was probably not THAT hungry, it was just my body refusing to catch up to calories I’d just consumed, so I drank a gallon of water.

Still hungry. 5 days of only liquids and mush, and my stomach wanted that full feeling of satiation that only happens from chewing REAL FOOD. Preferably with animal fat. #Icouldneverbeavegan.

I tried distracting myself by watching a Netflix special of my favorite French comedian, Fary (check him out, he is so deliciously sarcastic). Still hungry.

As I began watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, I ate a hefty serving of prune yogurt. Yum. So enthralled was I by the difficulties of a choreographed lip sync battle on roller skates with luscious wigs, that I didn’t notice that I served myself second serving. Then a third. The entire container of prune yogurt. In my belly.

I felt satiated for the first time in a week.

2 episodes later, I felt the apartment shake. An earth quake? Odd. Rumble rumble. Not an earthquake. My innards.

I will refrain from describing what happened as my body rid itself of the lentils and juice and water and prune yogurt. There were multiple supplications and exclamations to the Porcelain Bowl gods. Cold sweats. Shattered morale. A dehydration headache.

I definitely mismanaged my mush.

Advertisement

Vanity, dentists and drugs – part 2

On Monday, I had my wisdom teeth removed. Leading up to the procedure, I was a tad nervous. Anxious. Panicked. Hysterical. I convinced myself that since I am very vain, the Universe would take this opportunity to smite me by giving me facial paralysis. Obvi. Because that is the kind of thing the Universe does. Jackass.

Well…

Instead what happened is my dentist took my request to give me all of the drugs – ALL OF THEM – very seriously, such that I fell asleep in between each tooth, and left the clinic with a woozy smile. Allie picked me up, and brought me to her home to take care of me. I promptly passed out and bloody drooled all over her fluffy white pillows and blankets. Oops? For 2 days, she prepared me smoothies and home made soups, made sure I remembered to take my meds and we worked from her home in comfortable companionship. Monday was also my mom’s birthday, she would have been 65, so after I woke up from my drugged up nap, Allie bundled me into her car, and drove me to the cemetery, so I could wish my Ma a happy birthday. Really, I am the luckiest girl ever to have such a friend. Her cat tried to eat my laptop, a totally understandable impulse, and pawed at me until I gave her cuddles. I felt loved.

Behold, a pic taken immediately after the extraction at 9:30am. 10 hours later, the swelling had already significantly subsided.

By Wednesday, when I went back to work, there was no bruising, and hardly any swelling. I have a ridiculously high pain threshold, so I didn’t even feel much discomfort – I just noticed that I was exhausted, bc that is how my body manifests pain. I’ve been cleared to do light exercise, so I went dancing on Wednesday, and am really looking forward to seeing my #squaD at the gym tomorrow.

So instead of punishing me for my vanity, the Universe rewarded me with a supersonic recovery. Biggest inconvenience? Not eating real food, and not being allowed to drink while I am on antibiotics! Even that has a perk, because I am noticing my taste buds getting a tune-up: I have a newfound appreciation for the simple things like fruit smoothies, lentil soups and porridge with maple syrup. I can’t remember the last time I lasted 5 days without eating at least 3 cookies, or consuming a pound of chocolate over a week.

This is me dancing on Wednesday. 2 days after dodging facial paralysis. Not bad, eh?

To add to what feels like a windfall of ridiculous good luck, I got asked out on a date from a cute dude (not the cute one in the above pic) that was at Wednesday’s dance class. Originally, Cute Dude proposed we go for a drink once I am all done my antibiotics, which was nice, but I am not a fan of delayed gratification. But luckily for me, I realized that I have not yet had any ice cream, either to welcome the sunnier weather or as part of my recovery diet plan, and we all know that ice cream has magical properties that make the world a shiny, happy place. So, apparently, I am going for ice cream with Cute Dude this weekend.

No facial paralysis.

No swelling or bruises.

No serious pain.

2 days of blissful cuddles and love with Allie, William and the cat.

A renewed appreciation for healthy simple food.

A potential date.

ICE CREAM.

Had I known that pulling my wisdom teeth would be such an awesome experience, I would have done this years ago!

 

Vanity, dentists and drugs.

I’m getting all of my wisdom teeth removed tomorrow morning. 8:30am.

My parents spent thousands of dollars on orthodontal work to get me to have a functional smile. From grade 3 till grade 10 I had all kinds of hardware in my mouth, expanding my jaw to make room for my teeth that were growing in all directions.  Had my parents not spent that money, I would’ve looked like a shark. Given that I am inordinately vain, especially about my face – I think I am rather pretty – I am extremely grateful that they spared me from that shark fate.

I moved out in 2005. I failed at adulting, too busy trying to learn to survive on my own, not declare bankruptcy, figure out school. Typical early-adult struggle. I didn’t go to the dentist, because I didn’t particularly like dentists and I could feel one of my wisdom teeth growing and I didn’t want to hear that it needed to be removed. #denialskillsonpoint

2010. Two of my wisdom teeth had made an appearance. One became infected, really painful, causing the entire right side of my face to swell. Unacceptable! Emergency appointment at a high-end dentist downtown who prescribed antibiotics, took an X-ray, and advised me that not only are my wisdom teeth growing, they are growing in all kinds of shark-like directions, and one of them has its roots wrapped around the nerve that controls facial expressions. This would be a high risk surgery, because the risk of nicking the nerve and causing facial paralysis was extremely high. See a specialist, stat.

Excuse me, what? Facial paralysis?! I took the antibiotics and never called the specialist.

18 months later, I was due for a cleaning, and as Murphy dictates, my wisdom teeth were irritated and painful. Reluctantly, I dragged myself back to the dentist, mainly in the hopes that he’d prescribe me more drugs. He yelled at me for not having my wisdom teeth removed in the meantime. “Irresponsible! SO irresponsible. I told you. There are only 2 specialists in all of Montreal with the skill-set to remove that tooth. And they are busy. I told you. You are at risk of paralysis. And if you don’t get them removed, and the nerve gets infected, you are at risk of even more problems. GO SEE THOSE SPECIALISTS AND HAVE YOUR TEETH PULLED.”

So, I did what any adult with inadequate coping mechanisms would do. I pretended the problem didn’t exist, and tried my best to forget about it. I’ve done a fairly good job at ignoring it, despite sometimes having almost unbearable pain, and being unable to eat solid foods. But hey! At least I was still pretty and not paralyzed.

These past few months, as I’ve been struggling to get my health back on track, I began to consider going to a dentist. After all… not seeing a dentist for 6.5 years is not really best practice. But I felt I was at the limit of how many problems I could face, I didn’t want to hear that I had 45 new cavities, so I promised myself that I would deal with the dentist in the second half of 2018, once the rest of my life was under control.

Then I chipped one of my teeth eating a scone. Cue a hysterical meltdown. “I’m a terrible person, undoing all the money my parents spent on my teeth. What a brat I’ve been, I wonder how many cavities I’ve self-inflicted due to cowardice. OMG WHAT IF THE NEXT TIME ONE OF MY TEETH CHIPS IT’S A FRONT TOOTH?!”

That isn’t hyperbole. I ugly cried for 30 minutes, as I Googled the best ranked dental surgeons near my home.

That is how I found myself a few weeks ago in a dentist’s chair one block away from my apartment. The hygienist blinked when I told her it had been 7 years since I had a cleaning, rolled up her sleeves and got to work. She did a quick run through, and told the dental assistant that she’d have to do some cleaning before determining where the fillings were. I mumbled I didn’t have any. She stopped. “No fillings? And you have only seen a dentist twice in 13 years?” Yup. I told her of my previous experience with Dr. Doom-n-Gloom. She laughed. “Don’t you worry. Dr. Dentist here has pulled out thousands of wisdom teeth. He has seen it all. He will tell you if you are actually at risk of paralysis.” I nodded. She told me to open my mouth, so she could get back to world. I nodded. She waited. I told her I was scared my teeth were so fucked up she would chip them while cleaning them and then I would be disfigured. Twice I made her stop the cleaning. She thought it was because it was hurting me, or I had sensitive teeth. I explained that nope. Didn’t hurt at all. I just was so scared, I had trouble breathing. I needed time outs.

Dr. Dentist examined me. He looked at the X-ray. Good news: other than the molar that is next to the messed up wisdom shark tooth that has turned into a monster-cavity, I don’t have any cavities. I’m lucky. So we made an appointment for my wisdom teeth. Tomorrow. I told him I was really nervous. I asked for all the drugs. All of them. Knock me out, render me unconscious, because otherwise I will not survive this ordeal. I will have a heart attack from the fear that the Universe will use this opportunity to force me to deal with my vanity, by rendering me paralyzed. How could it resist? Even I find it funny, as a concept. And terrifying. I explained to Dr. Dentist, “Sir, I’m still single, you have no idea how brutal it is out there, nobody gives a shit about your personality, so if I am already having this much trouble while I am pretty, can you imagine how brutal it will be if I am paralyzed? Please sir. Please. Don’t paralyze me. I’m too young to be relegated to a life of loneliness and solitude. My face. You’ll take care of it?” He promised. He also admitted that usually he motivates his patients to take care of their teeth for health reasons, but in my case, he could see that I could best be manipulated through my vanity. And so, if I was so vain, surely I could see that smiles with receding gums were not attractive, so perhaps I would consider taking up flossing on a regular basis?

I’ve flossed every day since that visit.

He prescribed me all the drugs. All of them. Including a sedative so that I sleep tonight. Which I appreciate, except that now I have anxiety that I will sleep through my alarm and miss my appointment.

#vainestanxioustrainwreckever