Many people seem to have vivid memories, as well as some wild stories, about having their wisdom teeth removed.
Tryin’ to get high ’til I feel nothing
I could fall through the sky and still not feel a thing”
I’m too high (yeah what?) Whoah (high) whoah (yeah)
I’m so high (yeah, what?) Whoa, whoa (yeah)
This is the song, “Sky” by Playboi Carti, that my son was rapping to me in the car the other day. Actually, when I say ‘raping’, I should really say ‘muttering incoherently and violently’.
And it actually sounded like this: “Muh huh huhhhhhh huh huhhhhhhhhh. Whoah whoah whoahhhh whoah whoahhhhhhhhhh.
You can insert your own “that’s what all rap sounds like” joke here if you want. I never would, old crank.
Anyway, why did my son sound like that? The lyrics of this song give an idea. He was, in fact, “in heaven,” in a way. And his mouth was frozen and full of gauze and there was spit and blood everywhere. A classic Friday in the Perst household!
Just kidding. This was definitely out of the ordinary – my son had gone through that rite of passage that so many of us remember, having his wisdom teeth removed.
Do you remember when yours came out? You sure do – as I’ve talked to people about my experience with my child, I’ve learned that the whole world of wisdom teeth has created vivid memories for many, many people, and they all have wild stories to tell.
I remember bits and pieces from my own surgery, now more than 20 years ago, including the strange sensation of being instructed to count to 10 as the anesthesiologist knocked me out.
“Haha, okay. One, two, three.”
I still remember the tingle running up my arm as the sedative rushed to my heart, sending me into the shadows. Then I remember waking up and “hitting” the nurses. I’m sure they loved hearing those sexy mumbles from a bloodied young man on drugs. So charming!
Another friend told me about his post-surgery adventure of jumping off the bus in the middle of traffic, then speeding home the last 10 blocks, making it all the way there before falling flat on his face down the stairs, waking up hours later in a giant pool of blood. Such wisdom! I’m thinking I might know why the directions they give you now say that public transport is NOT RECOMMENDED.
And then there are the poor souls who just get local anesthesia and are awake for the entire procedure. They are the ones who come up with stories of dentists cursing, sweating, blasting, sawing, hacking, crowbaring, and standing over the chair to get the necessary leverage. Imagine enduring all that and then being sent home without any of the medicinal bliss? Where is the wisdom in that?
Now that I’m a dad, I’ve learned that wisdom teeth arrogance isn’t just a formative memory for the young patient, but for the parents there as they see the child emerge from the fog. This was, I’m pretty sure, the first time my son had a “disability”, so it was the first time I saw him super relaxed.
He was VERY happy when I was brought to see him.
“Hey Dad!” he yelled through the gauze, before yelling several more things my wife tells me I shouldn’t put in the paper.
The nurse then brought over a wheelchair, explaining that the legs might wobble after surgery. They use the wheelchair to get patients out of the building, through the parking lot and to their cars safely, he explained. That’s when my son decided it was a good idea to get out of the chair and start jumping up and down to show how wobbly his legs were. I’ll count us lucky he didn’t run into the x-ray machine. The nurses finally put him in the wheelchair and off we went.
I learned a lot that day. I learned that he can actually jump a little on the wobbly legs, and he’s a great gauze rapper, and he’s really cool with being hurt and he’s not a fan of looking like a chip, and he’s decent at Fortnite even when he’s drugged.
Of course, the risk of a young person becoming too attached to painkillers is certainly a concern, and some corners of the medical world argue that there is no evidence that even impacted wisdom teeth should be removed if they are not causing problems.
But it’s all over for my kid now – he got all four out – and we had a good time, learned a little about ourselves and sang a few bars of pretty good songs.
Wise men? “Muh huh huhhhhhh.”
Andy Perst is the editor of the North Shore News. His humor/lifestyle column runs every two weeks.
