i am me

i've been having some pretty intense toothaches of late. which has been contributing to my suddenly very frequent bouts of headaches. it was just one of those days when my head was pounding when i suddenly realised that the side of my face was also quite a bit achy. i ran my tongue across my teeth and suddenly, a sharp, shooting, lightning bolt type of pain pierced through my head. i gingerly tried to locate the source of the pain after my eyes had stopped watering and realised, that one of my top wisdom teeth was swollen and very, very painful.

die.

two of my bottom wisdom teeth had already partially surfaced and none had really given me much problem. plus, during a chinese new year house consult, my dentist uncle said it looked like i had a lot of gum space for it to grow. so i was quite assured that nothing sinister was about to happen.

i decided to just let the pain subside on it's own and not care about it. but two nights ago, i had a really high fever. so high, that i woke up the next morning without any clothes on. apparently, i had shed my clothes in the middle of the night since i had felt so hot. confirm la..i told myself. i had to go see a dentist.

and i did.

with much hesitation, i must add, since i knew it was going to cost a HUGE sum of money. but, i was afraid that my tooth had become infected and was impacted. so, i went to the city today, to visit the dentist. who happened to be a friend as we had met in church and he had given me his card. thankfully, i managed to get an appointment today after one of his regulars cancelled.

it wasn't good news.

i told him my teeth had been aching and he suggested that i get an x-ray done. which was kinda cool in a spaceship, star-trek kinda way.

and when it came out. true enough, there they were. all 4 of my wisdom teeth. and it turns out, 2 of the bottom ones can't surface fully since it's half impacted by the facial bone. great.

he turns to me and says:

'well, you'll probably need to go under general anaesthetic for this'

yes! i had hoped he would say that since i didn't wanna be awake for all the drilling and grinding and pulling and tugging.

'and you need to get all 4 out. surgically. and you need to get an oral surgeon for it'

what.

say that again?

'it's pretty major surgery. you need to remove a piece of the bone to get the bottom two out. and the surrounding soft tissues around the top need to be cut away as well.'

oh.my.gosh.

'all in all, it would probably cost you around 2.5 grand'

OH.MY.GOSH!

i tentatively asked if i could get it done in KL if i promise to take good care that it doesn't get infected and thankfully, he said, yes. phew. i hope it's much cheaper back home.

so now, i have been prescribed antiseptic mouthwash, antibiotics and i have to use a kids' sized toothbrush since my normal adults' one doesn't reach that far behind and i'm so afraid that food might get caught behind there and get infected when bacteria start growing.

hence, the baby toothbrush.

cute isn't it? it has tigger on it, and behind it has little bees and beehives! i guess ONE good thing came out of this.

sigh.