Wisdom gained, and wisdom lost

This article is written in two parts, at separate times…

Let me explain!

I am writing this first part the day before I am getting my wisdom teeth removed. I want to share my goals for the next week with you, and then in a few days I will write the second part and tell you how it went!

Part 1:

Alrighty, tomorrow morning is the day! I have never had surgery, broken anything, or even had stitches, so this feels like a pretty big deal to me.

I am the kind of person who thinks that when I have some extra time on my hands “I can get all of this other stuff done”! This time I’m trying to do things differently!

Here are some of the ideas I have / things I put into place to help myself:

No personal growth stuff, I know I will not be feeling great, and I don’t have to learn and improve myself just because I am at home
I took the week off work
I am putting an auto-reply on my emails, saying that I will be unavailable until Saturday, and to please not call me.
I am expecting to want to lay around and not “do” anything, I have a fun show I am currently watching, and I am hoping to be happy to just watch it, or other movies and not feel guilty or bad about it
My darling wife has bought all sorts of mushy things for me to eat / slurp (we’re making a pumpkin soup, we have ice cream, yogurt, mashed potatoes…)
Movement helps me: I played tennis today, I will take the doggies for a nice walk, and I have a line dancing class tonight

Well friends, I am a little bit nervous, but also relieved that it’s finally happening. I googled my surgeon, and they have 4.9 out of 5 stars on google! I am confident it’ll all work out just fine!

I will continue writing in a few days, we’ll see how I did!

Part 2:

It is now 8 days after surgery. Getting all four wisdom teeth removed in one go is no joke!

I was definitely nervous before the surgery, thankfully all the staff was very nice and gentle with me. As they were hooking me up to oxygen (just in case I needed extra), IV, heart beat monitor etc, one of the staff said “you will be asleep, won’t feel anything, and you might hear our voices somewhere far away in the distance…”

I heard NOTHING! That was the best sleep I have ever had! It feels a little funny, knowing I was not really present while they poked around in my mouth. A whole new experience for me.

Once I was home and slept off the anesthesia, I noticed that they had frozen my mouth to help with pain mitigation, and they froze it gooooood! I couldn’t fully feel my lip or tongue until the next morning. I had so much fun touching my lip, or even moving it while I felt nothing. It probably shouldn’t have made me giggle as much as it did, but I found it quite amusing. At some point I tried to gently put my teeth together, just to see what I could feel, and I couldn’t make my upper & lower teeth touch! I thought that was odd. So I tried again (gently, I didn’t want to hurt anything), until I realized I was biting down on my tongue which I couldn’t feel at all! Ha! What a weird day.

Day 2 after surgery, the chipmunk cheeks are coming in!

I am happy to report, that I really didn’t do much in this last week, I didn’t even check my emails until the weekend, I purposely extra enjoyed laying around watching movies and icing my face, and succeeded to not even feel guilty about it! I learned that it is totally ok to just take a break, heal, recover, rejuvenate. Not every moment of every day needs to be "productive".

It’s amazing how important food is in my life. I love food, and this past week has been very interesting. Eating lots of tiny portions of yogurt, apple sauce, milkshakes and smushed bananas is not very filling or satisfying. I made delicious mac & cheese on Friday (day 3 after surgery day), and I couldn’t eat it. I could barely fit a macaroni noodle in my mouth and tried chewing it with my front teeth. I was so hungry, so excited to eat something warm and perhaps more filling, and it just hurt too much. It made me cry! By Sunday night I could eat the mac & cheese, even several noodles at a time! Thank goodness.

I’m on the mend, and everything is healing well. I am happy it’s done, and can’t wait to be healed enough to eat one of our tasty homemade burgers!