40 minutes in the chair.........for those faint of heart, look away now!

And I'm back and within ten minutes I'm getting ready to share my harrowing experience with you lovely people.

Well, I am down two teeth, at least a pint of blood and a little bit of dignity, but at least I haven't lost the desire to write. To be honest if I could have blogged live from the chair I would have done.

To set the scene, I am sat in pj bottoms in front of my lap top, with a gauze pad in my mouth to stem the blood flow and a mass of bloody tissues surrounding me. And for those of you out there thinking, way hey she's topless....no no, think again. It's pj bottoms with my dress over the top. Ha!

And so, if you haven't been following the blogs or you just don't know what the hell I'm ranting about today, I just had an operation, a double tooth extraction, one of which was an impacted wisdom tooth. So really, I've had a lovely afternoon.

I arrived on time, straight from work as it's a handy five minute walk and within minutes the nurse had popped her head round. "Just a couple of minutes and you're on", she said.........She lied. Twenty minutes later and my bladder's filling with nervous wee. (Any women at this point will know all about the nervousness wee. I'm not sure if boys experience it to. It would be interesting to find out....Let me know.) My motor is running, my legs unable to stop bouncing up and down. (It's a subconscious thing that either means I'm stressed or cold, or both.) Eventually the same nurse came out and apologised for the delay saying it would be another five minutes. So at that point I did go to the toilet. No use hanging on to the nervous wee, in fact who knows if I would have been able to keep hold of it....Eek.

Then just a couple of minutes later, the lovely Dentist I'd seen last time came to do my consent forms. It's amazing. It was made for someone like me who has the pessimistic, worst outcome outlook on practically everything. So I was told that you know, my arm could fall off and all my finger nails could disintegrate, you know, the usual. And that (seriously) they could hit the nerve which could affect feeling in my lip, tongue or chin and that they could nick one of the other teeth, or blah blah blah. At this point I'm just thinking, get on with it. Whatever happens will happen, though I couldn't help feeling an extra level of dread. Some thing's going to go wrong, I thought to myself.

So once I'd signed my life away it was into the chair and the massive goggles and, oh hello there here's two needles to numb your mouth. Well, you couldn't fault him, for being swift. (Sadly the lovely dentist was only doing my consent, she wasn't doing the procedure, but there was a nice nurse and lots of other people milling around, so you definitely didn't feel alone. It's a teaching hospital so all the doors are left open and anyone can just wander in and look at your x-ray and your wide opened mouth. It's very strange. Not quite as glamorous as Grey's Anatomy though. Sadly ladies, no McDreamy. Ha ha.)

Now they talk about there being 'some pressure' but no pain. And to be fair they are right, though this phrase 'some pressure' needs to be redefined in the dictionary. Because let me tell you, it's more than 'some pressure', it's more like 'all the pressure! Ever!' Of the various tools he used, which I tried not to look at, (I just kept focused on the square shaped light on the ceiling, which at first I thought was flickering but then I realised it was just the fan going round) I'm not sure which was the worst, but they all did this crazy twist and grind thing. My tooth became the mortar and his digging tool, the pestle and I don't know what they hell he was grinding, but I can tell you it was fine enough to be sold in one of those spice sachets at Sainsburys. Dear Lord.

Of course, then there's the suction pipe, but I have to say I kept so focused on the light that the two hands coming out of my mouth were ignorable. If you dwell too much on the amount of your blood zooming off down the tube, I imagine you could get a little queasy. I'm one of the least queasy people, the sight of blood not being an issue but still, when it's you the blood's coming from I think it's definitely best to detach yourself from that.

Okay, so lower right number 7 was coming out first and as it was already broken, we were expecting it to come out in bits, so I knew it would take some time. I just kept focused and breathing and calm. It's the only thing to do when you're being twisted and pulled and yanked. Bless them though, they kept saying how well I was doing and giving me a break. But then they would say things like, "You'll just hear a crack and that's your tooth snapping in half." And then you feel the enormity of the situation. This is a part of you being forced from your body and no matter how decayed it was or how much it needed to come out, your body is still so reluctant to give it up. It's like your gums fight back. 'You will never take this tooth, not without a fight.' And fight they did!

He kept saying we had most of it out and then he said something about having to cut the gum and I thought (stupidly) that we were then on to the wisdom tooth, as they'd mentioned the gum may have to be cut for that. So I'm thinking, great, half way through. I can do this. I'm strong. I'm there. But no.....Another five minutes later and he whips the drill out. Now most of us when we think of the terror of the dentist, the drill sound is what comes to most people's minds, but in all honesty it wasn't half as traumatic as the 'some pressure' (as defined by evil dentists the world over).

So he's drilling away and there's blood coming out and pieces of tooth and root and all the rest of it and finally he's telling me 7 is out. But there's no sigh of relief, there's only the grim reality that I have to go through all that again but even worse as it's a wisdom tooth. And this time it's drill from the start and not just a gentle buzzing as he so nicely put it. This was journey to the centre of the earth. This was Bruce Willis in Armageddon. This was my mouth being obliterated, or so it felt.

You do get an amazing sense of how everything links together as this is happening. Because although they are right and it doesn't hurt, it is extremely traumatic. (Just a little pause to cry as I relive it.) At one point I couldn't tell my top teeth from my bottom teeth and I was genuinely convinced he was drilling on my upper tooth. It sort of warps your sense of where everything is but then you get this amazing sense of realisation. You feel the pressure in your ear, you feel how the cavity's are linked (and here I mean nasal cavity's and general head cavity's, not tooth cavity's). It's actually quite interesting, though at the time you're just praying for it to be over.

He then made the most appropriate remark he ever could have. He told me that it was proving to be a very difficult extraction and that it would take a little longer than planned and he would have to try a few things. He said, "It's seems pretty stubborn this tooth." I actually laughed with the drill and two pairs of hands in my mouth. I'm not surprised my tooth is stubborn, it's part of me. Though I wonder how many other people could say they had a stubborn wisdom tooth. Love it!

Then this stupid fat wench of a nurse took over from the other one, as she had to clock off and I didn't like her, she used this extra clamp thing to hold my mouth open and it was hurting my face. (I know at this point it seems petty to say the clamp was hurting my face when the dentist was drilling me and pestling me, but still, she was evil and clearly didn't give a rats arse.) And she kept putting the suction thing on my tongue and my lip, which felt really weird. I wanted to tell her to fuck off but it was a little difficult.

Now this is the point when another consultant arrives, takes a look at my x-ray and starts talking about how tricky it is and asking what was his plan of action. ARGH. The plan of action is to get the damn thing out and quick. What do you think. And at the end she had her gloves on and was inside my mouth as well, making sure all the nerve was out. Well, at this point it's the more the merrier. And number 8 is out and I am done! Hoorah. Tiny celebration as my face already feels like a lop sided balloon.

Then they quickly rush through pain advice and tell me antibiotics and anti inflammatorys and all that jazz and I've got a pad in my mouth and he's asking me questions. I can barely nod, how the feck am I supposed to answer you. Doctor's are clever but they are can also be ridiculously dim.

Oh, I forgot to mention the way my legs were shaking all the way through, but it was like I was no longer in control of them. Are your legs somehow linked to your teeth? God knows, but I couldn't stop them. Nicely though at least they shook in time to the drill, otherwise that could have really added to the distress. Ha ha.

Well there you have it. I think the best word to some it up is traumatic! It is a trauma to your body and it isn't nice but it is tolerable. And unfortunately due to my 'stubborn' wisdom tooth he had to prescribe me two lots of antibiotics. Great! Oh and I had two stitches as well. Let's hope I'm okay for work on Thursday. Though they'd better be gentle with me.

So I went straight to the Pharmacy to get my drugs and I had my own personal pharmacist (J) on hand for advice and support. So thanks for that J. And thanks to SA and L and Mum and A for the kind words and texts. It has made me a little emotional but I'm gonna blame that on the 'pressure' and hope it'll pass.

I took the tube home (big brave girl) and it was only after I got on that I realised there was blood all over my lips. So I spent the rest of the journey with a tissue hiding my mouth and when I got home I slipped another pad in between my teeth and applied pressure. Hands down the most painful thing so far, though the least traumatic.

A has just called to say he's back from Paris and so in 30 minutes or so I'll have company and cuddles and hopefully some sort of easy to eat food, because I'm starving!

Thank you for reading. I hope you managed to get to the end of it and that I didn't make anyone wanna top themselves rather than have a tooth extracted. Remember there's always the option of sedation or full anaesthetic. He he.

Now for a night of cuddles and sympathy and hopefully ice cream!