Of Wisdom and Woe

Some of you may have realised that I lately became one tooth the less. We pick up the story three days after my right lower mandibular extraction, which culminated in an all-night bleeding episode, traumatic gauze changes, 10 hours of clenching, a lengthy but fruitless visit to nearby hospital, and a troubling inability to open my mouth...

Anna woke up bright an early today, 4am in fact, with searing pain in her right facial region. She took some Panadeine Forte and was left 10 minutes later feeling like she wanted to throw up. After another 10 minutes of strange aches in the upper stomach region and back pain she went into the loungeroom to sit up for a while and revise some Hebrew vocab. The strange pains did not subside and a phone call to Mum was almost at hand. Was it the Panadeine? Was it a potentially lethal reaction to the antibiotics? Or was it because, ravenously hungry and faced with yet another bowl of soup, she'd food-processed her normal dinner and swallowed it all without chewing that night?

Whatever the cause, her first port of call was Derek, who in a half-asleep voice suggested going to hospital. After the last hospital experience Anna was a little reluctant and hopped back into bed. After another 10 minutes the pain was gone. Anna thanked God and swore to never take this many pain relievers in one day again. After another 10 minutes Anna was asleep. After another few, Anna was awake because Derek did not realise Anna was asleep and was asking how she was. After another 10 minutes Anna was asleep again.

At 8am, Anna woke up and cried for 1/2 hour because her mouth still wouldn't open and she thought it would never open again. Then her downstairs dentist friend visited, and said that by tomorrow it might open, and then I could go to the dentist and fix the pulsating hole in her jaw, which had since been named the horrific yet apt "dry socket".

Anna didn't take any painkillers this morning but swallowed her antibiotics dutifully. She forced down some soggy warm weetbix and yoghurt, and looked forward to the day when eating would once again bring joy instead of a wave of nausea.

She went along to class and managed to sit through 2 hours despite a throbbing headache. Over morning tea she drank a cup of milk (required for swallowing nurofen) and sustained an interesting chat. However, the talking and smiling required in a short conversation was too much for her feeble jaw muscles, and she sat down with relief and throbbing jawache at the end of mornos.

Following that incident she decided to bail for the day and leave the talking and smiling to other people. Once home she felt immediately better and slept for an hour. She rang the dentist, who assured her that if her mouth was open enough to talk then it was open enough to stick something in it to fix the hole. Hooray, she thought, the end is in sight!

Sure enough, that afternoon she and her personal home care assistant Derek negotiated the horrific Sydney traffic for 40 minutes and finally came to that source of all fear and yet, today, somehow also a place of tranquility and hope - the surgery. The dentist smiled as he sat her in the chair and stuck something bitter tasting in the hole. He rubbed it around for a while. He then sat her up and told her to wait 5 minutes, graciously allowing her to do a gentle rinse if she so wished. Anna seized this exciting opportunity and did a gentle rinse. Out poured about a litre of thick, blobby blood. Help, Anna thought, not this again! The dentist was nowhere in sight. A big string of blood connected Anna to the washbowl. Anna pulled it with her fingers to make it come away from her mouth, then rinsed her fingers in the little stream of water flowing into the bowl. It felt somehow unorthodox, and she was glad no-one had seen her.

After two more bloody deposits into the spit bowl (this time with a tissue at the ready for dealing with connecting strings of blood) the dentist returned and seemed somehow surprised at the level of bleeding his prodding exercise had incurred. Nonetheless, he went ahead undaunted, and next thing Anna knew a ball of hairy brown material was seen entering her mouth between tweezers. Soon she felt the familiar pressure on her socket and she knew that this little ball was her knight in shiny armour, come to wet her dry socket at last. Hooray, hooray, the pain dwindled almost immediately. After a vain attempt to squeeze some gauze into the back of her tiny mouth to stop the final bleeding (Anna breathed a sigh of relief when it didn't fit, and hoped never to see another gauze in her long legged life), the dentist gave her one final blow - no nuts or multigrain bread for a week or two - and sent her home.

The journey home felt for Anna like a new beginning. Something new and unexpected had dawned. The birds were singing. The air was fresh. The mouth held the taste of cloves rather than blood. Prayers had been answered. It was a time of hope and of thanksgiving. Derek and Anna arrived home with the sound of their favourite Indonesian praise song, Suci Suci Suci Allah, ringing in their ears.

Here ends this instalment of the dramatic saga of Anna and the Wisdom Tooth Escapade. Stay tuned to find out if the brown hairy thing remains effective, if her mouth does indeed ever open again, and whether the strong clove taste becomes annoying after a while.

(By the way, part 3 never came, but yes, one day the brown hairy thing fell out, and with it the strong clove taste, leaving behind a large but happily pain-free hole! Hooray! And bit by bit my mouth began opening again, until it resumed normal 3-finger aperture! Now I'm booked in for the next one, and I can't wait to see the baby go!)

Here's some photo evidence!

My bump


This is about how far I could open my mouth


The culprit (which I donated to science... yeah I really did!)