I have dental issues. I’ve had them for as long as I’ve had teeth. I should say that I have dental issues that are the result of having weird, irrational yet somehow also physical problems with Dentists visits. I’m not going to give details but lets just say that my problem isn’t with Dentists themselves, it’s just something in my head that makes dental work really tough for me to deal with. The final word on all of this being that my teeth are a fucking mess.

Weirdly, my wisdom teeth were not a problem. When I was a teenager my dentist said they could probably come out but given my usual difficulties they could also just as well stay in. So they stayed in. Until today. Well… for one of them.

Years ago my family was sitting around the house at abuot 4:00am waiting for a shuttle van to pick us up and take us to the airport for a vacation to San Diego, CA. I was in the dining room having a snack while I waited and one of the upper molars on the left side snapped off at the gum line. There was no pain or anything, just utter embarrassment and shame.

A couple of weeks ago I started having toothaches and they got so bad that I sucked it up and went to a Dentist. I couldn’t tell them exactly where the pain was coming from. It was somewhere on the left side of my head but it seemed to move around. The Dentist felt it was either the broken tooth or the lower left wisdom tooth. She declared that neither were savable and recommended they both come out.

This morning they both came out. A double extraction. Well… maybe not totally double, maybe a 1.5 extraction. One of them was already mostly gone but the root was still there. Whatever, you dig what I’m saying, right?

It went well. The pain is mild and manageable. There’s a lot of swelling and I’m not terribly interested in trying to eat solid food yet. I’ve had a lot of small protein shakes today to make up for that. Three cheers for the liquid diet, babie.

Anyway, back to work tomorrow. I should work in the office but I will error on the side of caution and work from home. Here’s hoping everything continues to go well and my recovery from dental surgery is quick. The literature they gave me said the discomfort should peak on day four and then you should be back to normal shortly after that. Here’s hoping that all of this shit stops being an issue shortly after Thursday. Fingers crossed.