Older, not wiser
By Sarah Blodgett
Considering all of the dumb blonde jokes that I am subjected to, I realize it is odd that I would choose to do something that would remove wisdom. However, after years of headaches and jaw pain, I finally broke down and agreed to have my wisdom teeth taken out.
Never having had surgery before, I have always been freaked out by anything medical. Of course, everyone kept telling me that getting your wisdom teeth taken out is something that everyone has to do at some point, so I should just suck it up and deal with it. I have such supportive people in my life.
My first visit with the surgeon, I’ll call him Dr. Evil, was interesting.
He told me that, because of my “advanced age” (I was 28), there were possible side effects. He told me that one of my teeth had a 15% chance of nerve damage and permanent numbness in my face. As a stand-up comic and overall vain person, the idea of messing with my face was terrifying. I was also informed of many other side effects, like infection and a condition called dry socket.
“They have to say that stuff to protect themselves, but none of that stuff actually happens to people,” was the song I heard from everyone I talked to. So I cleared my comedy schedule and made an appointment.
I had my wisdom teeth removed the day after the 2008 Superbowl, when the Patriots were horribly defeated by the New York Giants. Living in Boston, I was already freaked out about my first surgery, but even more freaked out that Dr. Evil could be a football fan and would be angry about the game, or, even worse, hung over.
As scared as I was, the minute the drugs hit me, I felt great, and I even lay in the chair considering what other work I could get done. I mean, as Dr. Evil had informed me, I was 28, and I wasn’t getting any younger. Maybe I could use a little nip/tuck. Apparently, even in a total state of euphoria, I am insecure about my looks.
After surgery I lay in the recovery room and I had to pee. I asked the nurse if I could use the bathroom. She looked at me as if no one had ever needed to do that before. She informed me that the only bathroom was in the main lobby of the building, outside Dr Evil’s office, and that my mom could help me there. I wondered, in my still drugged up state, if they had ever had a patient before. I did learn that day that, if you ever walk through a crowded lobby with your face swollen, and you are still woozy from drugs, with your mother helping you to the bathroom, it is impossible to feel good about yourself.
Things went as expected, at first. I was numb and swollen, and on a regimen of Advil and Tylenol. I was prescribed a stronger painkiller to take if I needed it. However, Heath Ledger (who was the same “advanced” age as me) had just died of a prescription drug overdose, and I had heard so many horror stories about painkiller addictions, so I was determined not to take them.
The first night after surgery I couldn’t sleep. I would dose off and have a dream that someone was holding my head up with fishhooks and then I would wake up from the pain. So I broke down and took half a magic pill. It did no good. So I took the other half. The room started spinning. I was nauseous and dizzy and kept seeing flashing lights in my totally dark room. I just don’t understand why people get addicted to these things, because I didn’t find them fun at all. Maybe I’ll have to try them again when I don’t need them for pain.
The day after my surgery was the presidential primary in Massachusetts and I was determined to vote. You can call me many things, but a bad American is not one of them. I showed up with a scarf wrapped around my face to hide the swelling. Sometime, for fun, in our post 9/11 world, try voting with your head and face totally wrapped in a scarf.
I didn’t sleep for three days and finally I had to call Dr. Evil, because I was in so much pain. He said it must be dry socket. I’m still not totally sure what dry socket is, but it’s painful. Apparently the treatment is to stuff medicated gauze in the gum pockets where your teeth were. It’s not as sexy as it sounds. The gauze tasted terrible and I had such a bad reaction that I started dry heaving when I got home, which is hard to do when you can barely open your mouth.
Food was another issue. The thing you need to know about me is that my love affair with food is intense, and I have the slowest metabolism on the planet. I gain weight so easily that I am the only person I know that has gained weight with the flu. After my wisdom teeth experience, I can now say I am the only person I know that has gained weight while on a liquid diet.
I was on my liquid diet for longer than expected. It seems my mouth just didn’t want to loosen up. I had to buy a mini toothbrush to clean my teeth, and they only came in cartoon characters. After one month, my jaw would only open half way. This was again, according to Dr. Evil, because of my “advanced age”. At 28 years old, I was officially a very old woman with an Elmo toothbrush.
As the months went by, my jaw started to loosen up, and I slowly started to get back on stage. There, however, was one problem. I still couldn’t feel half of my mouth. I looked totally normal, well as normal as I ever looked, but half of my lower lip and gums were totally numb. I was told that, if the numbness didn’t go away in a year, it would probably never come back. Apparently bad things do happen to good Americans.
A year after the surgery and still numb, I felt a swelling in the corner of my jaw, and went to visit Dr. Evil. Apparently I had developed an infection, the one thing I hadn’t had to deal with before. Dr. Evil said that it’s not unheard of to develop an infection after a year, but it is very rare. Lucky me.
After all this trauma, I should be a better person. I should be wiser. But my wisdom has been removed, and I am permanently damaged for it. On the bright side, anytime I’m in a group of people and the subject of “worst wisdom teeth story” comes up, I always win.
Sarah Blodgett is a comedian from Boston.
Visit myspace.com/sarahcomedy.