Wisdom Teeth

I can't believe you're all still reading this blog. Thank you for your love and concern.

My appointment with the oral surgeon went well. He's only five or six years older than me, I'd say, which is kind of odd, but he's very confident and seems to know what's he's talking about and have a lot of experience. We'll see, huh? ;)

He wants all four of my wisdom teeth out, and while one of them could wait, he said it could act up at any time and I may as well get it out at the same time. Yessir! I don't want to go through this more than once!!!

So, he's going to have me on Valium (to reduce anxiety), antibiotics (both in mouthwash form for five days prior to the surgery, and in an IV during the surgery), steroids (which they give everyone via IV during surgery), general anesthesia (PRAISE THE LORD!!!) and laughing gas (for the heck of it? I don't know, but most everyone has it, he says). And Vicodin for afterwards. Don't worry, Dad--I'll learn from Brett Favre's mistakes.

There you go. Sounds like I'll have plenty of medicinal support throughout. Now, I just pray that my Crohn's stays relatively stable.

And they have some financial planning things to help with the bill, so that's a blessing, too. All this dental work is so stressful, financially. It's so hard for me to pay money for medical/dental things--I got used to my HMO! Two of the teeth qualify for PPO coverage and the other two are the cheaper ones, so that's good.

Interesting stats that I learned:

--Only 2-3% of folks get dry sockets. And most of these folks are people who (1) smoke or (2) use straws (against their oral surgeons' orders).

--There is a small percentage of people whose minds wake up while under general anesthesia but who can't tell their doctors that they are awake, because the rest of their body is asleep. But if it happens to me, I can rest assured, because my mouth will be completely numb, so I won't be able to feel anything. (Just the kind of info I should NOT hear, huh, family?)

--There is a very, very small chance that I could suffer heart attack, stroke or death because of this surgery. (another unhelpful piece of info that his insurance probably requires him to tell me).

Despite the information overload, I feel very confident in his abilities and reassured that my teeth are not in imminent danger of falling out of my mouth or causing some awful disease if I don't get my wisdom teeth out in the next 24 hours (in my anxiety, I pictured the surgeon saying "Omigosh! You need these out tomorrow! I've never seen teeth in worse shape than this! How are you still alive? How will I figure out how to remove these complicated teeth safely and quickly! Why didn't you get these taken out in high school?"). In reality, he was calm and not terribly impressed even by my one tooth that's falling apart. He just said I should have this surgery done when I have a chance. He joked that I should wait until he's had time to recover from his Disney vacation at the end of April, if I can't come in before then.

So, it's all good. Thank you for your prayers!