Wisdom

I am not in a very happy mood.

On Wednesday I had 4 wisdom teeth removed.  I prepared for this by buying a lot of soft foods, watering all the gardens and flowers, picking any veggies that were ready, picking up my prescriptions, cleaning the house, stocking up on pet food, doing the laundry, sending out cards that would need to be sent, changing the sheets and basically getting everything caught up in every which way I could think of, so I wouldn't have to worry about it or concern anyone else.

Wednesday morning came and I got up and made Kimbre's lunch, made her pancakes and sausage for breakfast, fed all the animals and cleaned out the litter boxes, walked the dogs, pulled weeds for the rabbits, hopped in the shower and had JR drive me to Dr. Lovoi's office.  I was extremely nervous and had to stop myself from crying more than once.

Once there, they handed JR a post care sheet he was supposed to read, but while waiting I read it, twice.  They called me into the room and there were syringes and tubes and all sorts of scary looking equipment lying around.  The assistant hooked me up to some machines and attached some circles to my chest, put oxygen on me and then the Dr came in and started the IV.  He told me to take a few deep breaths and the next thing I knew, I was waking up.  My head felt like a big fuzz ball and I was feeling no pain.

The assistant said while under I asked for Vaseline, (for my lips because I was concerned with them cracking), and she said I didn't like the shots at all.  I guess I also asked where I was and he said,"You need more medication."  lol  I asked her if I swore because I have a bad mouth and she said no.

Everything went fine.  The two upper wisdom teeth pulled right out, but one lower wisdom tooth broke when he was pulling it, (it was cracked to begin with), so he had to do a flap surgery to get the rest of it out and since he didn't want the same thing to happen to the other tooth, he did this on the other side as well.  Don't ask, I have no idea what this means.  Maybe that it was like they were impacted because they broke off and he had to cut into the gum to get the rest of the tooth out.  This is what I'm guessing.

We waited until I was coherent and then JR drove me home.  I changed out the gauze a bunch of times because there was quite a bit of bleeding, but not excessive.  My mouth felt totally dry without an ounce of moisture in it and of course, I was totally numb from the shots, so I got the bright idea to rinse out my mouth.  Bad idea.  I shouldn't have done that.

As soon as the water hit the sockets where my teeth were, pain completely engulfed my mouth and I almost went to my knees.  I was letting the water dribble out of my mouth because the information papers said not to spit for fear of dislodging the blood clot and getting dry socket and the whole sink was full of blood.  This didn't help the weak knees feeling I was having.

I knew I was going to faint, so I started down to the floor, but could see cat litter particles and didn't want to touch it  Then I was thinking maybe I didn't want my head to be low to the ground, so I tried sitting up with my head forward, but that didn't feel right.  I asked JR for a wet washcloth because I felt like I was burning up, but it wasn't wet enough, so I asked him to get it wet again and he brought me an ice pack.  I started crawling for the bed, to get off the bathroom floor and JR helped me get into bed.

I asked him to call the office and ask if the pain was normal, which pill was the strongest for pain and how I was supposed to swallow pills if it hurt that much when the water hit my mouth.  JR called and yes, it was all normal and would go away with time, the Vicodin was the stronger of the 2 meds and it would hurt less as time went on to swallow the pills.  I put the ice packs on my cheeks and eventually fell asleep, happier knowing it was normal to be in pain and I wasn't dying of some complication.

I slept for almost 4 hours and woke up asking JR for the next pain pill, which was given in 4 hour increments.  The bad thing was I was supposed to keep ice on for 20 minutes, off for 20 minutes for the first 24 hours and while I was sleeping, I didn't do that, so the following morning I woke up looking like a chipmunk, even though I kept my head elevated and used ice for a good portion of the day.  I switched to taking turns with moist heat and ice packs for some of yesterday, which made the swelling feel better.

That first evening, 2 of our cats were tearing around the house chasing each other and ran right across JR and I in bed, scratching JR deep enough to make him bleed.  He got up yelling, of course, and started after the cats and I told him to just shut the door.  I was trying to sleep and I didn't want a hurt animal on my hands, so JR shut the bedroom door.  A few hours later, the cats are scratching at the door to come in and since we have the litter boxes in our bathroom, I got up and let them in.  Good thing I didn't just have 4 wisdom teeth pulled that morning.

I'm not sure if we're keeping the cats out of our room at night now, but if so, a litter box has to go out in the hall and the gate has to go on the outside of our door to keep them from scratching, otherwise I'll be waking up throughout the night when I hear them.  The fact that I am not feeling that great and have to deal with this nonsense is ridiculous.

JR was very helpful getting my ice packs for me and bringing me my pills when I asked for them on the first day. He also took care of all of the animals the following morning before work, went to La Madeline for tomato soup for me and bought himself some soup for dinner because I wouldn't be cooking and Kimbre was at a dinner party.

I could see it was wearing on him trying to take care of everything and go to work, so I got up this morning and fed the animals, cleaned out the cat boxes, walked the dogs and fed the rabbits and vacuumed before falling back to sleep for another 3 hours.  Lord help me if I ever get really sick.

I feel better today, stronger, but still have no appetite and am very tender in my mouth with some swelling.  I have been keeping up with the salt water rinses and antibiotics and trying to drink at least one Ensure per day to get the vitamins in me.  This morning I had some Greek yogurt, which was good, but I'm not sure I'm ready for anything heavier for awhile.

And this has been so much fun!  
 Pam