Thirty-three Years Later

Thirty-three years ago, my mother drove me to see my dentist, Dr. Trent, at his office on Bandera Road, way inside loop 410. It was the first Monday of a very hot July. I was going there to have my wisdom teeth removed. Tomorrow, on the first Monday of another hot July, my eighteen-year-old son, Josh, will be taking a ride for the very same reason. He will have his wisdom teeth removed, but his experience will be a lot different from mine.

My dentist removed my wisdom teeth in his office as I watched using a hand-held mirror. The entire procedure took about an hour and a half. My two upper wisdom teeth were fully grown in and came out easily. The bottom two were impacted. Dr. Trent drilled and pulled at them with horrific force. The local anesthetic prevented any pain during the process, but I could feel the jerks and pulls for hours afterwards, the way someone feels the ocean for awhile after stepping off a ship.

I left the dentist with a prescription for some major drugs, which Mom had been sent to pick up during my session with Dr. Trent, and a mouth full of bloody gauze. I wasn't in pain, as the anesthetic had not worn off. Later, when the Novocaine had worn off, there was a lot of pain and my jaws were swelling up pretty bad. When that happened, I was helped to the bathroom, where I rinsed my mouth with warm salt water, took some powerful pain killers, and replaced the bloody gauze with fresh new wads. The meds kicked in, and I spent the night exploring the wonders of La La Land. This became routine for a day or two until healing started coming and swelling started going. Then, the routine became rinse with warm salt water, take a few aspirins, and eat some kind of soft food. The gauze was gone, and the pain was never really there after that first time before the pills.

Josh will not go to his dentist to have his wisdom teeth removed. He will be seeing an oral surgeon instead. At least he'll see him for a few minutes. Josh will be going under general anesthesia and will sleep through the entire ordeal. He will get a first rush of drugs before being asked to count backwards from 100. By 93, he'll be totally under. After, what seems like no time has passed at all to him, a nurse will be coaxing him back to the real world as if nothing ever happened. He'll be under the effects of the pain killers given to him by IV sometime during the surgery. Like me, Josh will leave his procedure with a mouth full of gauze, but his Mom already has his pain killers, and he will go to the car in a wheelchair.

It remains to be seen how Josh's recovery will compare to mine. I have to think that a modern doctor who specializes in this type of tooth removal surgery has to have more skills and better tools for removing wisdom teeth than a regular dentist would have had thirty-three years ago. Josh will still rinse his mouth with warm salt water, but he'll take Vicodin for his pain. I am sure he will appreciate its pain-killing properties, but he probably won't get to go to La La Land to escape any discomfort he feels. At least, I hope that's true, since the information I just read about Vicodin says, "Be careful if you drive or do anything that requires you to be awake and alert." There was no way I could even have walked down the street after taking my pain killers. Drive? Forget about it!