Liquid Diet

Ah, nothing says it's the holiday season like applesauce, pudding, yogurt, and puréed soup...

Yesterday, around 1:30pm, I became a tiny bit less wise. My lower right wisdom tooth (tooth #32, the last one on a jaw chart) was removed from my head by Dr. John S. McIntyre, DMD (by the way, if you're in need of an oral surgeon, I highly recommend this guy - he's at One Hanson Place, in the old Brooklyn clocktower bank building, which, like everything else, is currently being converted into luxury condos).

All I have left of my wisdom now is #17, the lower left one...it's still hiding out inside my gums. I hope it stays there a good while, as I'm sure I'll need to remove it once it starts to surface.
According to an online chart I found, human third molars (wisdom teeth) generally "erupt" between the ages of 17-21. My first wisdom teeth (the ones on top) did not begun to erupt (nice choice of words) until I was almost 27. I have always had retarded teeth - it's true, I didn't lose all my baby teeth until I was 14 1/2. My sophomore year high school picture features a small gap in the upper right side of my smile, where I was waiting for the "grown up" tooth to make its way into my face.

I opted not to be put under during the surgery yesterday (instead taking three long jabs of a needle into my gumline, for local anesthesia)...I'd be interested to know what it feels like to be put to sleep, but not for the additional $350 fee. Anyway, if I'd been asleep, I would have missed the soundtrack to my extraction. Dr. McIntyre cranked the stereo for me while he went to work, and, I kid you not, the first track to come on was "Don't Fear the Reaper." Awesome.

So, yesterday afternoon and evening was a bit painful...well, a lot painful, even with a couple prescription-strength Aleve AND a couple vicodin swimming through me. I wonder what it would have felt like with no pain medicine at all.

Today, I am sore but most of all hungry. Yesterday, eating involved carefully slipping liquid foods into the opposite side of my mouth, avoiding the hourly-changed gauze covering the bloody hole behind my teeth. I look forward to chewing, carefully, again sometime soon.