The Penitent: Comfort in Discomfort

Success (sort of)! I decided to run an experiment with eating non-soft food. I warmed up a taquito in order to eat it. By cutting it into small pieces, I was able to very carefully and very slowly chew and swallow it. This means that turkey will not be a problem. Unfortunately, little pieces of the food still managed to find their way to rest in my sockets. The solution to this is relatively simple though. I have a tiny squeeze bottle that I fill with salt water and use to “flood” my sockets and get all the gunk out. It is somewhat time consuming since I have to be absolutely sure that I get everything out, but I think that it will make it worth it for Thanksgiving. Rock.

Also, in addition to previously mentioned forbidden items that I desire, let’s add Bärenjäger, pizza cheeseburgers, grilled stuft fajitas, and chocolate candies.

Yesterday wasn’t too bad. I was able to eat some cream of chicken soup, and discovered that I can eat semi-firm foods as long as I cut them small enough to place on my toungue and swallow. This bodes well for thanksgiving. >:-D

Yesterday evening, I went over to see how Spanky is doing. He is definitely worse off than I am. They had to cut his out, rather than pull them. He was at the hospital from about 9:00 a.m. to (I think?) 4:00 p.m.; they had to put him to sleep, but they also kept having trouble getting everything squared away. He has been taking his painkillers on a schedule because if he misses a dose he ends up in extreme pain. They put stitches all over his gums and split his lip as well. Perhaps the surgeon had cerebral palsy or something. He seems to be in good spirits though, all things considered.

My gums seem to be healing quickly, although they start to bleed just a little bit once in awhile. Every day that passes seems to bring noticeable improvement though. The swelling was a bit rough this morning, but the doctor said that it should be the most swollen around the third day–which it is. In addition to taking my antibiotics, I have been soaking my mouth with salt water to try to assist in keeping any possible infection from developing.

I have decided to share some of the pics I have taken related to my wisdom tooth removal. There is some blood involved, so may the squeamish be forewarned:

Click here for pictures.

Things have been mostly uneventful since part one.

The biggest problem so far has been that my gums did not want to stop bleeding. I would change out the gauze every hour or so, but the sockets never really would stop bleeding. Sometimes they would have almost quit, but then they would start up again. Once they got to a point where they were only barely bleeding any, I finally decided not to put any more gauze in. I think that was a wise decision, because the bleeding no longer got much worse, and at times would completely stop before starting up again. It seems that the reason I couldn’t get the bleeding to stop with the gauze was that my jaw would twitch while clamping the gauze to my sockets, and so it kept disturbing the clot a little.

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I began my walk to the PRT station. It was raining, but not too bad. After I had gone about a block, the wind and rain really picked up, and my umbrella was of little help. I thought it was going to break actually, and I was still getting very wet. Finally, I reach the PRT station only to discover that this year they have decided to shut it down for Thanksgiving break.

It is 10 minutes until my appointment is supposed to commence, so I have to walk back home and get in my car. I get to the office about 15 minutes late. After some brief paperwork, I am seated in “the chair” and one side of my jaw is numbed. There is a large Craftsman tool cabinet to my left, much like one would expect to find in an auto garage but no in an oral surgeon’s office. After 15 minutes of small talk with one of the assistants, the right side of my jaw is numb and the procedure begins.

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