Another day at the oral surgeon's.

Our oral surgeon and I are on a first-name basis.

Today he removed the wisdom teeth from my fifth (and last) child. That makes twenty wisdom teeth and a little over ten thousand dollars. I'm sure he had a lovely time on all those vacations I paid for.

This was Man-boy's first experience with any kind of surgery, general anesthesia, and real pain. He was understandably apprehensive after watching his three sisters pass out repeatedly in the bathroom for days after their surgeries. But at the same time, he was determined to walk himself into the house under his own steam rather than be dragged in by his mother and the neighbor with a bad shoulder (who is also almost a foot shorter than he is. I wasn't sure how that was going to work out, but figured we'd do the best we could and he would live through it. Thankfully, we didn't have to find out.)

When he woke up in recovery (he says he never really slept and was aware of the drilling and breaking of teeth), he was amazed at how good he felt. Drugs will do that to you.

He kept saying how he didn't feel a thing and wasn't it great? He felt like a million bucks and tried to get up and show me. He even gave me permission to take a picture. After I took the photo he reached for my phone saying he was going to send it to Abbie to prove how great he felt. Unfortunately, thumbs on drugs don't do well with a qwerty keyboard so he had a little trouble typing. He kept laughing and making "whooo-eee!" sounds. When the doctor came in and asked how he was doing, Man-boy exclaimed, "Great!" and Dr. A. just laughed.

The drive home was uneventful except for the ice packs leaking down his neck which woke him up long enough to throw them on the floor of the car. He did walk into the house on his own, got in his bed, and was not heard from for two hours.

At which time the realization that all the numbness had worn off and major trauma had occurred in his mouth while he was sleeping became very real. I don't recall the other kids having this much pain, or maybe they just weren't as vocal about it, but I couldn't get a vicodin in him fast enough. He sat on the couch almost gasping in pain and after 30 minutes of no relief, I called the doctor's office.

I told the nurse I had given him one pill a half hour ago and it didn't seem to be helping at all. She said, "Give him another one. And in five hours give him two more."

That did the trick and Man-boy has been sleeping the sleep of the thoroughly drugged for the last four hours, only waking long enough to change his gauze and ask when he could take more medicine.

You know it's working when a teenage boy sleeps through lemon-pepper chicken and mashed potatoes being made 10 feet from where he lies on the couch with nary a nose twitch.

Hoping tomorrow's a better day for Man-boy.

Be thankful ~

Karen