I took off my sandals outside the room and went in; the nurse told me to put down the stuff in my pocket and she placed them in a little plastic box. Another nurse got me to lie down on the operation table, I was a little too tall and I had to bend my knees a little to fit into the position where my head is in the depression on a cushioned headrest. The nurse talked amongst themselves while the doctor came to administer anesthetic and went away. I was practically waiting for the surgery to start but nobody seem to be paying attention to me so I just slept.
The doctor woke me up with a greeting again and the nurse brought a cloth with only a hole in the center for my mouth to cover my face and chest. I can feel them placing instruments on that same piece of cloth including something mechanical and spinning since I could feel the vibration of the motor beside my right cheek. The target of the day: my upper and lower wisdom tooth on my right cheek.
The numbness has set in and when the doctor started I could feel nothing except the pressure she was exerting on my jaws. It amounted to quite a lot and my entire face was literally being pushed and pulled in the process. Then came the drill which didn’t hurt at all (anesthetic is the greatest invention in medical treatment) but the squealing of the mechanical device was positively threatening. I couldn’t exactly feel what is happening within my mouth so I was imagining how my wisdom tooth was being twisted and how blood was gushing out as the tug-of-war started between the dentist and my jaws. The drill apparently conferred the dentist an unfair advantage and the entire affair ended pretty quickly. Soon the dentist was asking me to hold the mirror and showing me the wound she afflicted under my upper lips unintentionally because an equipment she was using leaned too close to my skin there. She apologized and told me she’ll prescribe a cream for that and eventually it should develop into an ulcer and heal. She told me to open wide, stuff a piece of pressure gauze into the back of my mouth and said, “Bite. We’re done”.
I retrieve my stuff from the desk with the plastic box and came out of the surgical room as if nothing happened. I lost my ability to smile for the moment but I was still talkative and pretty happy (told you anesthetic is the greatest invention ever in medicine), “So I get to keep this?” I asked when the nurse passed me the bloody teeth in a little plastic zip-lock bag which was stapled to a packet of sterilized gauze. I took a break in the adjacent room before being discharged minutes later.
The pain came soon later. Argh!
