Thursday, March 09, 2006

Well, I lived. That was by FAR the grossest thing I have ever been through in my entire life. If you're easily grossed out, you might want to quit reading here. Please excuse any errors or typos I may make. I'm probably a little loopy right now from the pain meds. :)

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Let me start by telling you about my night last night. I went to bed around 10:30 but I sure didn't get much sleep. Despite telling myself not to freak out, they do this kind of thing every day, I'm sure they're very good at it, etc, etc, etc, I still had nightmares all night. Think about the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors and that's pretty much every dream I had last night. I was worn out by the time my alarm went off this morning!

When I first sat down in the chair, Dr. Z had me take 600 mg of ibuprofen. Before they even started! Not a good sign, I'm thinking. Then, he had me rinse with a special mouth wash for 30 seconds. Then I put on an oh so sexy hat like they wear in the surgery rooms to cover my hair. And he also gave me some safety glasses to wear.

Then, he gave me 3 shots. 2 in front of my bottom 2 teeth and one in the roof of my mouth. And yes, they hurt. Not as bad as I expected though. Then, I sat for a few minutes and got nice and numb. He came back in, gave me 3 more shots, and I sat for a while until the shots had time to do their thing.

Then it was time for him to get to work. First, he shaved of a little of the gums in front of my 2 front teeth to make a bed for the graft to sit on. I couldn't feel anything except a little scraping sensation which was SO GROSS, but I was thankful I couldn't feel any pain. Then he stitched that up a little and I could NOT watch him do that! Stitches gross me out so much! I think the worst part about this was the fact that while I couldn't exactly feel any pain, I could feel him sewing my gums! Seriously, I could feel him making the stitches with the actual needle and thread! (Now you know why I say this is the grossest thing I have ever been through in my life!)

After that, it was time for him to harvest the graft from the roof of my mouth. Again, not so bad because I couldn't actually feel any pain. But just knowing what he was doing was freaking me the heck out. I tried not to focus on that, but it was pretty hard because his gloves were bloody and right in front of my face. EWWW!

Finally, he sewed the graft from the roof of my mouth into place. Still no pain, but lots more of the awful sewing feeling. I don't know how many stitches he gave me, but I know I could not wait for him to be done! I even have 2 stitches behind my 2 front teeth on the bottom and how they actually work to hold the graft on, I would rather not think about.

And that's it. He took some pictures for my file and sent me home with some special mouth rinse, an ice pack, and a 2 page sheet of instructions.

I made Jason stop off and buy me some groceries (pudding, eggs, cottage cheese, soup, ice cream etc.) that would be easy for me to eat without too much chewing. Then, we came home and I went straight to bed and slept for about 4 hours.

When I woke up, I was STARVING! I ate 2 pieces of toast before my surgery, but that was all I had eaten all day. I was so hungry that every thing sounded good, but even drinking water hurts my mouth, so it was tricky to find something I could eat. I settled on some instant mashed potatoes and normally, I wouldn't think about them being very salty, but WOW! Yeah, that wasn't too fun. But I did eat a bowlful of potatoes and drank some water.

Jason said that it was too bad we couldn't grill up some steaks tonight since it's the first time the weather's been good all winter. I just gave him a dirty look and continued eating my mashed potatoes. He is so bad! He knows I've been craving a good steak for months now and he also knows just how bad I've been wanting the weather to warm up so we can fire up the grill. That won't be happening any time soon! I'll be eating soft stuff for several weeks at least. Guess I should feel lucky that I can eat all the ice cream I can stand, right?

So to end this long post, I'll just say I'm doing OK. My mouth hurts like a son of a gun and I'm sure I'm not too fun to be around right now, but I'll be fine. Thanks for all the kind wishes.

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