Wisdom #Life

I just had my last wisdom tooth pulled this morning. The others went reasonably well.

This one... well, didn't. It was a fun time in the dentist's office this morning.

He got it to the point where he said it was really loose, but it just wouldn't come out. I could feel him twisting my entire lower jaw as he tried to pull the danged thing out. And despite the three syringefuls of Novocain he gave me before he started, the thing hurt like a son of a mother.

It wound up breaking into, at my best guess (I didn't ask), three pieces before he was done. After wrestling with it for a good long while, he took a break and an X-ray, pored over it for a while, and told me I was done and I could go.

It turns out that there's still a "sliver" of root left in there (don't you love it when your wisdom teeth have little hooks on the end?), and that it's right next to a major nerve, so if he did keep going after it, I'd probably end up with some temporary nerve damage and not be a happy camper. If he just leaves it there, there's a good chance it'll work its way out over the next couple of weeks; if so, I'm to go back in, and he'll pull it out.

Otherwise, he said that 99 times out of 100, leaving a sliver in there won't cause any problems.

(Given our history with health and cats, I'm not totally sure that 99% is all that reassuring...)

Anyway, given the amount of yanking he had to do, I decided to take the morning off work, so I don't have to talk around my gauze. I'm feeling pretty decent so far (the Novocain hasn't worn off yet, mind you), but I'd just as soon let this thing clot sooner rather than later.

(You really wanted to know all that, didn't you?)