Never as bad as you think!

This weekend was lazy! I got my wisdom teeth and two broken molars removed on Thursday after a root canal on Wednesday. I was severely dreading both procedures, but neither one ended up as bad as I was imagining. When I told people about getting my wisdom teeth out a lot of people asked who was doing it. When I told them my dentist was doing it, they all thought I was crazy and said I should go to an oral surgeon. My dentist is cheaper... and he's never hurt me before, so we'll stick with that plan thanks. I went in and he gave me this release paper to sign. As I read through it I got really nervous and felt as if I was signing my life away. After I was in the chair, he took the release and went over each part in detail. He assured me that each one of the things on it were extremely low risk and I felt assured. One of the things he was worried about was the tooth that got the root canal was weak and right next to the wisdom tooth. He warned me about that and on we went. He also recommended nitrous oxide (laughing gas) in addition to the novacaine, to which I also agreed. I've never had laughing gas before, and I'm not sure I want it again. It made me feel very disconnected and slow. He started by numbing me really well. I couldn't even tell if my mouth was open for most of the procedure and it must not have been because at one point he stuck in that thing that forces your mouth open. He started on the top molars. They broke several months ago and I've been getting food stuck in the hole for a long time. It was time to let them go. The teeth had a hard time agreeing with me about that and it took some effort to get them to let go. He had to break them in three pieces and then work them out... good thing all I could feel was pressure! When he finally got those out (it took about 45 minutes), he moved on to the wisdom teeth. My top wisdom teeth are nonexistent so I just had to worry about the bottom ones. The x-ray showed text book teeth. No crazy roots, no weird bends. They're called conical because they have a root that looks like a cone and usually come out nicely. Luckily for me that was the case, and had I not spent 45 minutes in the chair for that molar the whole procedure would have taken about 5. They slid right out, in one piece, and by that time I was sniffing oxygen trying to return to normal. He stuck gauze in the holes and gave me some last minute instructions as I proceeded to come down from the laughing gas. He told me to get ibuprofen for the pain and prescribed amoxicillan for the possible infection from the molars and sent me on my way with a handful of gauze and his cell phone number in case there were problems. Thursday night I was feeling pretty good once the numb wore off, and thought huh... piece of cake! At two in the morning, I woke up thinking I was going to die. It hurt so badly so I took some more meds and willed myself back to sleep. Friday and Saturday I spent lying around DVD's. Saturday I was feeling a bit better, so I made myself fried eggs for breakfast. The stupid root canal tooth broke eating an egg! Really! I guess it's true that it was a weak tooth. I'll go in Monday and see if it's bad or just something the crown will cover once I get it. I was afraid to eat anything after that so I just had some rainbow sherbet and lots of water. By dinner time I was starving, so I ran to Subway and got a meatball sub with just cheese, not toasted and ate it with a fork and knife and very carefully! It worked out pretty well and I felt full for the first time in 3 days. Today is my dad's unbirthday (leap year baby) and hopefully I can chew dinner, because missing out on my mom's cooking is a tragedy! Anyway, back to work tomorrow and I think I might be okay. It's nice when what you imagine is worse than the reality! At least I don't have to worry about wisdom teeth ever again!