L'hopital rule
So there's this rule that says everyone should go to the hospital at least once in their adult life, right? And since there's also this rule about wisdom teeth supposing to get more potentially problematic as you get older, I just combined both rules and had myself a Memorial Day Weekend Staycation at UPMC Shadyside. It certainly was an experience! In a sense, the story continues still, but the current upshot is that i'm okay, happy, and healthy at home, for now.
Background: I've had impacted wisdom teeth for a long time. I've never quite known what exactly that means and how serious it is, but basically i think it boils down to "they're not coming in", and that can have consequences ranging from the mild sort like not having wisdom teeth that came in to the serious sort like having them destroy all your other teeth and ruin everything that is good and happy. Mine seemed more like the former sort for a while, but one in particular, the most egregiously badly positioned of them all (the tooth is literally like on its side), recently started causing some trouble -- i'd feel occasional aches and pains, but they were mild, and they'd usually go away in time. I kept dragging my feet -- for like, years! -- on getting all my wisdom teeth evaluated by an oral surgeon to see if they ought to be removed.
Early days of the incident: The moderate toothache pain had been kind of increasing recently, and subsiding less reliably, until things really seemed to come to a head at !!Con in NYC two weekends ago. I was in a lot of pain for a lot of the conference, and a lot of people noticed, so finally, i called my dentist and left a message. I actually had a wisdom teeth evaluation scheduled already, but it wasn't for several weeks still, and i told my dentist i think i probably needed to come in to get looked at as soon as possible, asking that they call me back as soon as they could and explaining that i'd be back in town on Tuesday.
I think these are the days when i started taking a lot of Advil -- 4 pills at a time (800 mg), but usually only to sleep. Over !!Con weekend, that started not really working :(
Clock day, Tuesday: The clock is now ticking. My dentist's office calls me back bright and early at 8:30 and asks if i could come in at 10:30. Sure, i say, sounds good. I actually have a morning meeting on Tuesdays at 10, but i figured i could miss one without too much issue. And since i wasn't getting very good sleep, anyway, i just rolled out of bed at this point, had some breakfast, worked from home a bit, and informed my teammates that i'd be dialing into the team meeting today, but only for the first 15 minutes or so since i had an emergency dental appointment to attend to immediately thereafter.
At the emergency dentist visit, i told the dental assistant that i already had an wisdom teeth evaluation appointment scheduled, but it wasn't for weeks yet. She turned to me and said the happiest words i'd heard in days: "Would you like that to be sooner?" :D :D :D
Well, "sooner" turned out to be "right now", because the oral surgeon's office is literally like next to my dentist's office, and i guess they bake some time into the schedule for emergency patients who just need to be looked at. Here, i met Dr. Smiga, who admonished me lightly for not getting these taken care of 10 years ago -- he called me "wisdom tooth old", which is apparently over 30 -- and recommended removing the problematic tooth but leaving the others in place. The procedure would have to be under general anesthesia, which comes with a whole laundry list of provisos (no food or drink for at least 8 hours prior, no alcohol for 24 hours prior, bring a driver/babysitter to make sure you get home okay and watch you for the rest of the day, bring a blanket for the recovery room, etc.), but basically, i'd go to sleep, then wake up, and the procedure would be done.
Got an extraction scheduled for June 14th. Kinda thinking to myself at this point, in some moderate amount of pain (there were still periods of respite, and mercifully or unfortunately, the evaluation took placing during one), June 14th, is that really gonna work? That's like.. over 3 weeks out? Ugh :( But who knows, it might get better between now and then, stabilize on reasonable steady state. Also, i had an antibiotics prescription in my back pocket from the dentist that i could start whenever it felt necessary -- i've had an abscessed tooth before, and i kinda know what that feels like, and i didn't think this was it yet. Everyone (dentist, oral surgeon) kept telling me it didn't look infected at this point, after various bits of poking and prodding.
Thursday evening, things started feeling pretty bad, so i left work to walk to Target, bought some more Advil, filled the antibiotics prescription, and started the course. (Total aside, but Target has a really cool pharmacy that dispenses drugs in these space-age future pill bottles that were the end result of a design student's masters project! So that was kinda cool.)
Unfortunately, things didn't start feeling any better... Thursday night was very rough...
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And unfortunately for you, gentle reader, i'm running out of steam for the moment, so maybe let's say "To be continued..." for now. Consider this post Part 1 of a series. Next time: drugs!