Good-bye Wisdom Tooth

Written January 6, 2009

So they finally did it! With 13 days until my release they finally came through! I had my impacted wisdom tooth removed today! I can't feel my face...and it feels great! For all the crooked, unlawful, degrading, soul crushing, and despicable things I have seen done by the staff here to the inmates, this one single act has restored at least a fraction of respect for the OCSD and the other ruthless county workers here.

This afternoon, around 1:00 pm the deputy came on over our little speaker: Pppmph!!! "Jah juh wah mu ta ta Henderson?!" Pretty much all I heard was my last name.

"Uhhh...yes sir?"

PPPPMMMPH!!! "Wheme towa sama domtom."

You can understand my confusion. Shortly thereafter the lock was buzzed and I walked down, through the outer door, through yet another door where the deputy handed me a dental pass. Oooooh! I get it now! I am ushered down the long Death Star-like corridor I described before and had a seat in front of the Dental Office.

If I thought I had seen plenty of tattooed faces before I was housed here, I was wrong. It was almost as if my lack of neck, head, and face tattoos cause the guys in this waiting area to look at me as if there was something wrong with me! You know the expression, "eyes on the back of your head"? Well I was most uncomfortable because the young man directly in front of me had, well, eyes and a menacing face tattooed on the back of his head that appeared to be staring directly at me...into my soul!

I met with the dentist after looking over and signing the scariest medical releases I'd ever seen. But what the hell? If, in a few weeks, I am drooling out of the left side of my face and my jaw is wired shut, and I'm blind and going bald, you'll know what's up.

The dentist was very nice, and had a Danish accent but was still very easy to understand. He shot my gums full of something to numb them. He told me, if I felt anything to let him know and he'd give me more. What?! They're not going to knock me out? No. Oh well I couldn't feel anything from the neck up at that moment anyway, so I rolled with it. Anyway, if I was out cold I couldn't write about it later right?

So they (the dentist and his little assistant, a young Asian lady) go right to work cutting the gums around the tooth. Then the dentist begins drilling the tooth in half and breaking it up into smaller pieces with a chisel type tool and removing the fragments. I could kinda feel it, when he was chipping the tooth down. And I could definitely hear it. But it wasn't so bad.

After everything was done they stitched me up and gave me some instructions on how to take care of it. They gave me some ibuprofen to take in between the scheduled medicine I would be receiving at med call for the next week until they called me back to take the stitches out. And that was that.

As I am writing this I am starting to get some of the feeling in my face back, and experience some of the pain they predicted. But it's all good because I actually got it done. Granted it took three and a half months and a housing transfer plus numerous false starts. And I probably won't be eating any toffee peanuts for a bit, but it's done.

While I was there they said that I should have one of my wisdom teeth on the top left side removed as well. I doubt it will happen while I am here, and I don't want to stick around longer to have it taken care of. So I'll have to have it looked at sometime this year when I am out of here.

But I am very pleased that it really did happen. Now I don't have to be in public with a swollen face, and I don't have to bother with the pain of it anywhere else but in here. Honestly, being in physical pain will be a nice little change from the dull aching psychic pain that one goes through here on a daily basis. The pain that comes waking up in here will be pushed to the back of the line for a few days. Which I am more than happy for.

The real challenge is going to be working out tomorrow as I had planned if my head and face are still going to hurt like this. Wow, it's really starting to hurt. I think I am going to check off another day on my calendar and lay down for a bit. One more day down, one more day closer to home.