This one time, because my orthodontist is a lying jerk-face, I got my wisdom teeth out. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me and was more surprising than the one time a large hawk landed gracefully on my shoulder. You see, when I went in and got x-rayed for society’s favorite method of child torture (braces) Mr. Orthodontist told me that I, much like the unicorn, was a rare breed of homo sapien who has evolved enough not to have wisdom teeth like most barbarians who slough around our planet.
My 12 year old brain responded in this manner: "Thank fucking god I hit one genetic score, I may need glasses and braces and be hobbit sized, but I do not have wisdom teeth.” After spending ¾ of the most awkward years of everyone’s life in braces and glasses and a complete inability to dress myself presentably (I was that kid) I made it to college, learned archaeology and was flying high.
Until my dentist pointed out to me that ‘oh hey, your teeth are moving’. BAM! Wisdom Teeth. I imagine it happening like when Emeril adds garlic to his pretentious recipes.
The blow to my self confidence was shattering. Or at least, moderately upsetting. After I experimented with jumping off the couch at my grandparent’s house and landing teeth first on their antique wooden rocking chair when I was 5, I developed a healthy fear of letting anyone near my mouth with anything. Which was, of course, why I was the first and last kid in my family to need braces.
Thankfully, the nice man who was going to rip my teeth out noticed that I was about to burst into an embarrassing fit of tears as he described the procedure to me and did not do anything with shiny instruments or my mouth. He rationally knew that he did not want to deal with me when I actually had to have my mouth cut open, so he handed me a tiny little manila envelope (it was adorable, like a smurf!) with a shiny new valium pill in it for when I actually had to do something scarier than getting an anatomy lesson.
I cherished that sucker. It was going to make everything okay in a world my greatest irrational fear, aside from annihilation by Gamma Rays from Space, kept happening to me. So the day came. I was dragged out of my bed by my two sisters, who had been through several major injuries apiece and were super excited to see me finally get silly on some anesthesia, because it was summer vacation and there was nothing else to do.
I popped the valium and was driven to the dentist where they put an IV in me, and told me it would help me calm down more (its nice to now my fight or flight instincts can conquer drugs). Then this man with a magnificent beard talked to me, explaining that he would do the surgery since my usual dentist was MIA. He asked me questions, but I was starting to hallucinate so my twin answered them for me.
I remember calmly thinking “This is what it must be like to be on drugs,” as I watched broken shards of a rainbow flit around the room like a school of minnows. The nurse harassed me about counting. Which, I am proud to say, I did not do. I knew I would not get to 0 counting down from 100, so I felt no reason to try when there were so many more interesting things to take up my attention. Like swimming rainbows.
The next thing I remember is sitting up in my parents bed (apparently I had refused to sleep in my own). I walked into the bathroom, saw my bloody shirt, and spit BLOOD into the sink. My brain, rational creature that it is, immediately said “Coughing blood is a symptom of tuberculosis or even ebola. What if the blood from your shirt is from your eyes because your cells are exploding?”
I had no idea what the hell was going on but I was intensely concerned that I had a disease eating away at my cells in particular. I have never cherished my cells as much before or since as I did in that moment. I was more worried about them than my actual body.
Thankfully, Erin’s twin senses started to tingle and she ran into the bathroom and wisely yelled “DON’T PANIC!” which worked since I was still heavily sedated and very suggestible. Then she gave me pudding and a vicodin after calling my mother, because I had already forgotten I had gotten mouth surgery and re-panicked twice, and Erin was no longer finding anesthesia as funny as it had first seemed. Then, I discovered Vicodin made me throw up.
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