I got up one day to find out that my lower jaw was paining awfully; also I could not swallow anything without causing much trouble in my throat. I knew the reason for the latter but not for the former. It happens every winter. According to my observation, whenever I drink chilled water or anything icy, the next day I am definitely going to wake up with sore throat. The technically correct name: Pharyngitis. The pharynx swells up and in worse cases you will have trouble even while drinking water. But thats not it, this one is a package offer. You get many more offers along with the base offer of pharyngitis. The others are headache, fever and body ache. Imagine all this on the same day. I couldn’t have my lunch properly and as if that was not enough I started shivering on my desk. I knew it was time for doctor’s appointment but then that was two hours from then at 16:00 hrs. I was fighting with time and then I finally made it to the doc. He convinced me that all this was indeed because of pharyngitis and the reason is simply viral infection. And the dentist was to take care of my tooth ache.
After the general physician's appointment I rushed to the dentist who in less than a minute showed me the condition of my wisdom teeth. The one on the left upper jaw had made it appearance long back and it had grown in the wrong direction and the one on the left lower jaw was trying to tear out my gums to come into this world. Not only that, it was also trying to make room for itself by misaligning the formation of other teeth in the lower jaw. Picture three people sitting on the seat in the local train of Mumbai and how they make room for the fourth person. Well sometimes they don’t and the fourth person has to tell them a word or two and he makes his own room. The poor guy in the center and the one who just sat are the ones who suffers the most. It was the same condition with my lower jaw. The dentist gave me a prescription of some mouthwash to gargle everyday and I was to take an appointment soon to get the wisdom teeth removed.
My daily chores now involved medication along with two different gargles and one mouthwash. The mouthwash was for the wisdom teeth, the other prescribed by the physician for the pharynx and warm salt water (half a teaspoon of table salt dissolved in a glass of water) again for the pharynx but something which was tried and tested long back my me and I found it quite effective. From last 3-4 years I had not been to any physician for any sort of health related issues but the pharynx always reminded me of its presence every year and after its first visit I was always prepared for the next one. The pills worked as pain killers and my fever and body ache was gone by next day. The pharyngitis was cured in another day or two. Anything that I ate now was ambrosia for me as I could enjoy it like before. Eating with a smile I was a happy man until I took the next appointment from the dentist.
16:00 hrs, 27th February, 2009. I was at the dentist's clinic right on time. Workmates saw me leaving at 15:30 and gave me their best wishes when they came to know of the reason. My roommate had accompanied me to the clinic and it was his first visit. There was a room right in front of us and on its right side there was a passage of around 2.5 meters after which one could find entrance to another room. As we settled ourselves on the sofa, waiting for our turn, we saw lady with her daughter entering the first room. After few minutes of dead silence in that place, where I could hear nothing else but my heartbeat, we heard some moans from the other room. "Best of luck!” my friend wished me with that never ending smile on his face. I so badly wanted to hit him but at that very moment the lady and the daughter stepped out of the room. I knew it was my turn, so I got up and entered the first room. A female doctor was going through some of her patient’s papers when she looked at me and gave me a very unlikely expression of "Yes??” she asked as if not expecting me to be there."Uh.. I'm here for my wisdom tooth problem, have an appointment for that.", I said. I came out from that room; the embarrassment could be seen on my face. My friend noticed it but he thought thats for losing my teeth. "Wow...that was in seconds, how are you feeling?" he asked. "This was the gynaec, the dentist is in another room!", I said embarrassingly. Watching my friend's reaction, I understood why people use the ROFL (rolling on floor laughing) expression. We both bursted into laughter. Just then the intern at the dentist opened the door and asked my name. I knew it was my turn, she asked me to step in after checking the appointment list. "Don't worry", advised my friend. "Yeah, yeah ... ", I said not knowing whats gonna come next.
The dentist asked me to sit and relax on the dental chair. He asked me if I was nervous and afraid. "Yes", i confessed. "Don’t worry, I am too", he said and started laughing at his joke. I just gave him a smile and started praying that everything goes fine. He painted some gel on my gums."Just some skin numbing gel so that you don’t feel the injection" he said. I told him frankly that I haven’t been thorough any dental procedures apart from cleaning and something like this was totally new to me and unwanted. He asked me to relax and assured me that it won’t hurt. He was right, it didn’t but still I didn’t like that needle going deep inside my gums. You will know why when you check out this image which shows the injection that was used.
http://www.animated-teeth.com/wisdom_teeth/dental-injections.jpg
I raised my hands as if I was in excruciating pain when he applied the injection in the extreme left corner of my lower jaw. He stopped and asked me if I was in pain. I was not, it was just my psychological reaction to the injection and not physical. I was convinced that all injections hurt, and this type of mind set usually resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then he continued with another dose of local anesthetic injection to the upper one. After few minutes passed, i started feeling dizzy. Now I could not even see the clinics board which was hanging outside the window and was not far from my chair. When I told this to the dentist he said, "it’s because you are afraid. Relax!". He asked the intern to apply a cloth dipped in cold water on my forehead. I started feeling better when that was done. I had already started feeling the numbness on the entire left side of the upper and lower jaws including the lips. He asked me to let him know the moment I felt that he can go ahead with the extraction.
To be continued….
