After the positive reception I received for the news of my last dental adventure, it seems only fitting I share with everyone the outcome. I had my four wisdom teeth removed. Apart from feeling significantly less wise I’ve also been experiencing pain when opening my mouth any wider than one would to eat a pancake (and not a rolled up one) and mushy gums where my teeth used to be. That is in addition to other not so pleasant gross things like dissolving stitches but let’s not get into that. Overall, as I stated multiple times, it felt like someone had decided my jaw wasn’t quite big enough and punched me in the face. Then, upon deciding symmetry is an advantage, punched the other side of my face. Finally, reconsidering and coming to the conclusion that symmetry is in fact overrated, they punched me one final time on my left side. The result was one face swollen to vaguely resemble a watermelon with a noticeable amount of extra swelling on the left side.
You should have seen me try to use a straw in the hours after the procedure. The lower half of my face was numb and, try as I might, there was no way I could shut my mouth properly to create the required suction to drink my chocolate thickshake. I was devastated. But I’m a problem solver. By placing the cup on a hard surface, manually holding my mouth shut with one hand and directing the straw to my numb mouth with the other I slowly managed to finish my thickshake. It was both delicious and worth it.
The really amusing part was the ice packs. I’ve spent countless hours over the past week with a white headband-like thing around my face holding ice packs to my cheeks. Apparently I looked amusing because a few chuckles were thrown in my direction as I watched kids’ movies in bed, met with my non-verbal profanity.
So where was D’mitry while all this was happening? Residing, as per usual, on my desk living it up (because who wants to chill in a hospital, honestly). while I was forced to do nothing. Have you ever seen an active person forced to do nothing? Refresh yourself on some of the older stories of my experiences on long flights and you’ll get an idea. Adventures have been seriously lacking recently and dental surgery hardly qualifies as adventure-like (although it was my first experience with general anesthetic with some amusing outcomes). Hopefully more adventures with more D’mitry involvement are on the way. In the meantime I’ll just strap ice to my face or let D’mitry play in the headband-like thing, as shown, and settle down with some pictures of mountains because that’s as close to an adventure as I’m likely to get for the next little while.
D'mitry the Dinosaur 