Wife Test #1

Perhaps you really do lose all your wisdom when those pesky teeth get pulled. I say this tongue in cheek considering I had my wisdom teeth extracted a couple of years ago, but I think I have some pretty convincing evidence. Jon had three of his wisdom teeth pulled last week. Let me just say that you don't really know a person until you've seen him on pain medication. (I've heard that the "happy drugs" may drive a person into singing James Brown's "I Feel Good"--just a story I've been told...) I thought I was prepared to play Nurse Kristin. I'd gone to the store and purchased Jell-O ('red' flavored, of course), two kinds of pudding, yogurt, potatoes for mashing, and Tillamook (local brand from Oregon) cookies 'n cream ice cream. Since I'd gone through the whole thing myself, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was in for. I had two bags of frozen peas waiting in the freezer to serve as ice packs to reduce swelling, and I covered the pillow cases with old towels in case of drooling. What I was not expecting was how hilarious Jon was for the first hour or so after the procedure. But allow me to digress... We had a big dinner the night before the surgery since Jon wasn't able to eat anything for twelve hours. That means no coffee...which is pretty rough for a boy from Seattle. I ate breakfast in secret so as not to tempt Jon and off we went to the hospital. We got there in plenty of time...to wait. But once they called his name, the process went incredibly fast. I barely had time to run down to the pharmacy (that's a story in itself) before the nurse came out to explain Jon's post-operative care. I should have known I was in for a good time when she said, "Since the procedure went so quickly, he's still a little loopy." A little loopy?!? That's the understatement of the year. My first glimpse of wisdom-less Jon was of him sitting in a wheelchair frantically waving for me to come pick him up. He then stood up unsteadily and did a little jig. (Actually it was pretty similar to the way he usually dances, so I guess that had nothing to do with the drugs.) Did I detect a little sarcasm from the patient escort when she said, "Good luck!" I must be incredibly insensitive because I basically laughed at him the entire ride home. I couldn't help it. With all the gauze in his mouth he was almost impossible to understand. It was like he was holding on to his tongue while trying to talk (I bet some of you are attempting that right now). To top it off, the oral surgeon had attached three-foot long strings to each piece of gauze (to make them easier to remove) so that he looked like he was in the middle of swallowing a ball of twine. But the funniest part of it all was what he was trying to say. He was certainly in no pain and was completely starving. In fact, he wanted to know when he "could eat pwime wib [prime rib]." And he was simply fascinated by the strings...even asking if he had a certain feminine hygiene product in his mouth. He couldn't figure out why I wanted him to get into pajamas and crawl into bed and insisted on picking out a movie to watch. It was about this point that the drugs caught up with him. He maybe saw the opening credits of the movie, but that's really about it. He slept the entire afternoon and spent the rest of the day devouring all the soft foods he could find and holding packages of frozen peas on his cheeks so he wouldn't get that tell-tale wisdom tooth chipmunk look. And for all intents and purposes, there ends our story. In Jon's defense, he remembers none of this. As far as his teeth--or lack thereof--he's had no major problems so far. Except for a giant gaping hole that he keeps getting food stuck in. All that being said, I truly admire all of you in the medical field. I saw some pretty gross stuff when Jon was rinsing out his mouth that first day (the "honeymoon period" ended right then and there). And it was nothing compared to what doctors and nurses see on a daily basis. It's not that I get squeamish around blood or anything--it's just not that pleasant. Just another sign that I'm not ready to be responsible for another human being any time soon... You might be thinking that I'm throwing Jon under the bus a little bit here. But he's had his chance to write a post, and he hasn't. Besides, I haven't really done anything silly (with the exception of almost melting the plastic pepper shaker on the stove and not knowing how to work the blinds). Yet.