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My rebellious teeth
Mar. 4th, 2008 04:17 pmMy first visit to what I had begun to mentally call the castle of Doctor Terrible took place this afternoon - I've opened a new entry tag to record the development of this new storyline that life has thrown at me. In reality it's a nice enough basement suite, clean and quiet and only slightly funeral-home-like. Dr Fine is a little older than I expected, but nice in a pushy sort of way (but everyone in Boston is pushy, so it averages out to just being nice).
After filling out the obligatory confusing mess of an insurance and consent form while listening to the gentle call of high-pitched drilling noises, I was led through to a dental-looking room where he asked if I was from New Jersey (apparently the accent is very similar) and poked around in my mouth a little. After that, he immediately said that we'd better 'relocate' and distractedly led me down the corridor. I was half-expecting to be taken to a small dungeon somewhere, but instead I was shown to a tiny room with an X-ray lightbox and desk.
The consultation that followed was calm but not fantastic. Essentially, my wisdom teeth are all partially impacted, infected, extruded or exploded, and from just taking one look in my mouth he was surprised that I wasn't in complete agony because of any one of them. To look on the bright side, not being in agony even though my wisdom teeth are having such a hard time is probably a good thing - we must be more resilient in Britain. Still, he made it clear that they had to come out as soon as possible to prevent future catastrophe, and that process would involve a considerable amount of pain and swelling. Apparently there's also the very, very rare possibility that removing wisdom teeth will sever a nerve running along the jaw, but apparently Massachusetts General Hospital are rather good at repairing those.
So I had to read through and sign an absolutely terrifying sheet saying that I understood the risks of surgery and the possible problems (because as he says, America has too many lawyers in it), and I've been sent home with a leaflet called "Impacted wisdom teeth" illustrated on the cover by a large and happy third molar at a crazy diagonal angle. Now I just have to wait for a phone call from somebody from the office so I can arrange to get them removed from my head, and I'm sitting at home on the sofa eating chocolate biscuits while I still can.
After filling out the obligatory confusing mess of an insurance and consent form while listening to the gentle call of high-pitched drilling noises, I was led through to a dental-looking room where he asked if I was from New Jersey (apparently the accent is very similar) and poked around in my mouth a little. After that, he immediately said that we'd better 'relocate' and distractedly led me down the corridor. I was half-expecting to be taken to a small dungeon somewhere, but instead I was shown to a tiny room with an X-ray lightbox and desk.
The consultation that followed was calm but not fantastic. Essentially, my wisdom teeth are all partially impacted, infected, extruded or exploded, and from just taking one look in my mouth he was surprised that I wasn't in complete agony because of any one of them. To look on the bright side, not being in agony even though my wisdom teeth are having such a hard time is probably a good thing - we must be more resilient in Britain. Still, he made it clear that they had to come out as soon as possible to prevent future catastrophe, and that process would involve a considerable amount of pain and swelling. Apparently there's also the very, very rare possibility that removing wisdom teeth will sever a nerve running along the jaw, but apparently Massachusetts General Hospital are rather good at repairing those.
So I had to read through and sign an absolutely terrifying sheet saying that I understood the risks of surgery and the possible problems (because as he says, America has too many lawyers in it), and I've been sent home with a leaflet called "Impacted wisdom teeth" illustrated on the cover by a large and happy third molar at a crazy diagonal angle. Now I just have to wait for a phone call from somebody from the office so I can arrange to get them removed from my head, and I'm sitting at home on the sofa eating chocolate biscuits while I still can.
