Wisdom Teeth are Out!

Had them out on Thursday, it's now Monday and I'm still feeling like crap! I'll start from the beginning.

I went in, filled out a 3 page form and got sent to a little room to watch a short video about the surgery and what to expect. Then I got put in another little room on the dentist chair, staring at a tray of surgery tools. In avoiding looking at the tools, I talked to the assistant for a bit.

The anesthesiologist came and quickly jabbed the needle into my arm. Then he said "this is gonna make you woosy, then you'll fall asleep". Well, he put 3 syringes in. First one did nothing, 2nd one I got woosy, 3rd one I was still woosy but not any worse. I was just hoping (and expecting) to fall asleep quickly and get it all over with. Tyler falls asleep within seconds of injecting the meds. I didn't, but I suppose I have a bit more body mass than he does! He opened my mouth and I felt a really sharp pain. I was thinking "crap, I can FEEL that!" So I was starting to panic about not being asleep, though my eyes were shut. I was cringing, and wondering if he could tell or not. Thankfully I only felt it for a few seconds. After that I still wasn't "sleeping peacefully", it was like a bad dream or something. I felt restless and I was seeing lights flashing by me or something. I'm not even sure, it was a weird sensation. I still can see it though.

I woke up what felt like seconds after that. The restless sensation didn't go away but the weird things I was seeing stopped and I heard someone saying "Wake up! Open your eyes!" in a rather impatient tone. I tried but couldn't seem to open them and focus on anything. Then the assistant said "Come on, open your eyes, we're get up". They pulled my legs around to the side of the chair and each grabbed an arm, telling me to use my legs. I thought they were being really rude and rushing me way too much. Luckily my legs were strong enough, I walked to a chair and sat down, then they got Dan to sit with me. They gave him the directions and asked us where to send the prescription to. What felt like 5 minutes later, they came back and told me to get up because it was time to go. Dan helped me to the car, I still couldn't seem to get my eyes to open much. I slept through the pharmacy drive thru and woke up as we got home 10 minutes later. Dan helped me to bed and I slept off and on for 4 hours. After that my head felt a lot clearer and it was a relief.

I asked for a mirror and saw there was a ton of gauze in my mouth. I couldn't tell what it was and didn't want to touch anything until I had a mirror! So I took all that out, thankfully the bleeding had stopped. Later we read that the gauze should've come out after an hour. OOPS! They gave me Vicodin, Ibuprofin and an Antibiotic. I started with the Vicodin and alternated them every 6-8 hours. The Vicodin made me really drowsy, I had a hard time staying awake while on that, so I've been taking the Ibuprofin during the day, especially now that I'm alone with Dawson! I couldn't nurse for 24 hours, so I had to pump and throw it out because of the anesthesia meds.

It's been 4 days and I feel worse than the day I had them out! I have a horrible headache that has been there the whole time, my jaw is really sore and I can't eat anything that requires chewing. The last couple days my face has been half numb. I've heard that there can be damage to the nerve that runs along the jaw. Sometimes it goes to sleep for a while because of the trauma of surgery. I'm hoping that's the case. I've heard stories of people being numb from a few days, 6 weeks and one friend has permanent paralysis! It wasn't there right away, so I'm hopeful that it just fell asleep after a few days of pain. My left jawline is numb, along with my whole chin, halfway down my neck, almost whole bottom lip and half my nose. My cheek is numb too, and all the way up to just below and next to my eye. It's weird! I can't imagine spending another week like this, let alone 6 weeks or more! So hopefully this nerve will wake up soon! The ironic part is, the thing I was the most afraid of was my mouth being sensitive where the teeth were, and it being painful to eat or drink. I haven't had any sensitivity at all! Which is great, but I really wasn't expecting any of these other side effects!

I've taken to eating with baby/toddler spoons. They aren't as wide, thus easier on my jaw. I can't open my mouth far at all. I have a long line of stitches in my left cheek, not as much in my right but I saw some there too. Not sure why in the cheek, not thinking I want to know! I started working on the mouthwash they gave me. Before it hurt to drink, let alone swoosh anything in my mouth, but it's to prevent infection and bacteria growth, so I figure I'd better do it. So today I'm really sore from that too. At least it's the blue minty stuff, so it doesn't taste too bad. I was dreading to find out what was in the brown bottle. Do they enjoy making people worry? A clear bottle of blue stuff would've been much less intimidating!

On top of the pain, my energy is wiped out, I'm having hot flashes occasionally and some dizzy spells. Though most of the dizziness comes from the Vicodin. I was going to wait until I had less pain and felt better to go back and be with Tyler but I'm sick of waiting. It's not getting any better, some days it seems worse! So I'm just gonna go. If I'm not feeling well, I can always rest at the Ronald McDonald house. At least I'll be closer to Tyler and if I get lucky, maybe I can bring him out on a day pass so he can rest with Dawson and I at the RMH.

I have to say, after my experience I'm hoping to never need another tooth out again and I'm really hoping to never have to be put to sleep again! I really hope the experience is as peaceful for Tyler as he makes it look.