Unwise Guy

It's been 2 1/2 months since my last entry and that wasn't exactly one I wanted to leave at the top of the list for so long. Oh, well. I was wifeless for five weeks so you'd think I could write an entry or two but here Veronica is back after visiting her family in Venezuela and I'm finally writing something. The house could have easily provided a few entries since I spend most of that bachelor time working on it. But I'll show some of those projects later.

I actually have a moment now because I'm lying low for the weekend recovering from having my wisdom teeth removed. I had a dentist long ago say I didn't need to take them out because there was plenty of room for them but I couldn't clean around them easily so my current dentist recommended taking them out now instead of later in life when it would be harder to recover. And for some reason I ended up doing it with the dentist instead of an oral surgeon. I think I had it in my head that the surgeon was going to cost more and since it was all coming out of my pocket, I went for the more economical option. Well, hindsight is 20-20 as they say.

I spent almost three hours in the dentist chair and ended up going to the oral surgeon in the end anyway to get out a couple stubborn roots that wouldn't cooperate. I had local anesthetic and nitrous oxide, which was an experience in itself. The whole thing feels surreal now that it's over and the time didn't seem as long as it was, maybe due to the nitrous.

The nitrous oxide seemed to have stages depending on how much was turned on or how the nose piece was seated. At first I didn't feel anything so I asked if it was even on so the dentist cranked it up. Once he started working on the first tooth everything suddenly felt extremely exaggerated. He was pulling my tooth from side to side and it felt like we were moving a foot in either direction and my imagination was running wild with what was going to happen when it gave. I suddenly realized that my imagination never works like that so I must be a little high. I asked them to turn it down but it felt like they turned it off so for the rest of the first two teeth I was aware of everything except that I couldn't feel a thing. It was a very strange experience.

The best moment was when they raised the whole chair so the dentist could stand and work. I don't know if that opened the flow in the hoses or maybe pressed the nose piece against me a little harder, but that' s when it felt like nitrous oxide does. We were up closer to the lights and those started doing weird things and I got the wah, wah, wah sound and I just felt really happy. That was the moment I realized why they call it laughing gas...I think even did laugh at one point. They could have worked on me all day in that state. But then we lowered back down and it went away. That was the most interesting part of the whole experience, the legal drug trip. The oral surgeon would have been easier and they would have knocked me out but then I would have missed the experience and I'm all about the journey in most cases.

Now it's just been a weekend of recovering. The first day it felt like I had been beat up because my jaw had been so abused for so long. Yesterday morning it seemed the pain had all gone away but then it came back and I took a couple Vicodin in the evening and then some Motrin today. Now I feel pretty good, though, and I hope it stays that way.