Wisdom Teeth

So, my son has to get his wisdom teeth pulled. He normally doesn't want me to post pictures of him in my blog or anywhere else, but I think in this case he won't mind.

He does mind, so this is not actually his picture

I had my wisdom teeth removed when I young - fortunately, I only had two instead of four - and it was actually not that bad of an experience. The oral surgeon used local anesthesia plus nitrous oxide, and I got to listen to music on headphones while he operated. My music of choice? The album Powerslave by Iron Maiden. I recall basically just rocking out to that while I felt odd tinkering sensations in my mouth. Neat.

While the operation itself went more smoothly than I expected, it was what came afterwards that was the challenging part. A fair amount of discomfort, along with a liquid diet and whatever it is I had to do with salt water made the following few days less than fun. What helped make it better? Books. I couldn't eat much food, so instead, I devoured the entire Original Shannara Trilogy - all 1800 or so words of it.

I was hoping that by the time my kids had to go through something like this, some smart people would have perfected the technology to simply vaporize the teeth with lasers, or maybe transport them out of the mouth, Star Trek-style. No such luck, but I know that my son will get through it with his own distractions of choice. Hopefully that kind of advanced technology I described will be ready for the next generation (see what I did there)