Update: Wisdom Teeth

I was cocky. I bragged that I led a charmed life. Well, it all came back to bite me on the butt, big time. (Or the TOOTH, as it were.)

Monday I had my post-surgery consult with the oral surgeon, as I reported it was fine, great. That night, I started feeling nauseous and out of nowhere, just started puking my guts out. AGONY. I could feel my mouth trying to stretch wide and I tried, I really did, to keep it closed but puke doesn't care. The body can't help what it wants to do. It felt like something wrenched in my jaw area on that one side and it was like an explosion of the most intense pain I've ever felt.

The nauseous-ness continued on to Tuesday. After that first time, I was so paranoid of my jaw doing that wrenching-thing again that I was frantic to stave off future vomiting episodes. Plus I really needed something for the pain. So I took a couple of percocet and ate a yogurt, hoping the food would calm the nausea that usually accompanies the taking of the percocet. But no, that just fed the fire, excuse the pun.

And so began a vicious circle; puking, taking a pain pill with food and water, then puking it all back out again, and so on. I wasted a TON of my precious percs.

Finally, by Tuesday night whatever 24-hour bug I picked up ran its course. Blessed relief.

Early Wednesday morning: as I'm packing the kids' lunches, I bent down to give Ryder his good-morning-hug and the little DICK (no 'ens' on that one) rammed his big ole rockhead right into my jaw, RIGHT on that one painful spot. On purpose!

I just about blacked out from the pain. I thought what I felt during that first puke episode was the epitome of pain, well. That was nothing compared to this. Instantly I was hunched over, waves of nausea, light-headed, jaw THROBBING. It felt like the inside of my mouth had exploded. Immediately I popped two percs, pulled up my big girl panties, and finished the morning routine of packing lunches, getting breakfasts ready, hustling the kids through their routines of brushing teeth, getting dressed, etc. All on autopilot, all done while waiting for the meds to kick in.

Which they did, for a brief hour. An hour! And then the pain returned. And it was horrific. I wanted to take more pills but I only had two left, so I waited as long as I dared, made it to noon. Took those last two pills with a prayer that the relief would be longer this time. And they definitely did take the edge off but there was still that constant throb.

And what a day for visitors. My cousin Kim called out of the blue and asked if she could come over for a visit as it was her lunch break. I'd mentioned in the past that she should come over for coffee and a chat, so I WAS happy that she took me up on the offer. Most people just say 'sure!' and then you never hear from them. So I said yes, come on over. But part of me was like, 'Really, today of all days?' When I was wandering around in a perc-and-pain daze, looked like absolute SHIT, greasy hair, unwashed body, wearing dirty clothes? Because of the pain, I was in that mood where I just didn't care. And I told her that on the phone, that I was a complete mess, so she was forewarned.

And of course, being a hair stylist, she was dressed all snazzy, awesome hair, looking friggin' GREAT (she's lost at least 20 pounds since I last saw her, I swear!). So we had our coffee and somewhat-awkward chitchat -- being that we don't have a whole lot in common beside kids and husbands and messy houses. Lol! But those DO make great topics of conversation, so it was all good.

Later that night, Levi and Amber stopped by to drop off a movie for the kids and cookies. Levi could tell that I wasn't myself, he noticed it at once just by the way I opened the door! Hah.

So yeah, not a very good night. And not a very good Thursday (today) either. I knew, I knew, that something was very wrong with my mouth. I called the surgeon's office and she said to come in right away and they'd fit me in. Ryder and I arrived at the office and were there probably a good half hour before they called us back to the doctor's room. He took a look and of all the things I'd braced myself to hear (infection, dry sockets, exposed nerve, abscess) it was NOT this:

"There's some food impacted in the site."

Uh, what now? Friggin' FOOD?! You mean to say that the source of all this agony was some bits of G-D food? I felt like a beast, a slobbish pig of a beast!

He assured me that that was very common and it was definitely a good thing I came in because it would have turned to an infection in a day or two. He used a cool little water-pick looking thing, basically a syringe with a long curved tip, to flush the food out and it was GROSS! I was just so, so embarrassed. He gave me one of those syringes to take home and advised that I use it after each meal to keep the site clean. So now I'm paranoid about it happening again and I've been flushing the area constantly.

So yeah. Brought down from my charmed-life pedestal by a piece of food. Niiiice.