A walking, talking gross-you-out

2005-03-16 - 7:00 p.m.

Today was the day of my gum surgery. So far I'm surviving. The actual surgery lasted about two and a half hours. I had them stop one time to give me extra novacaine, but for the most part is was painless. Not comfortable, but at least painless. I'll spare you the details, but basically what they did was to cut skin off the roof of my mouth and suture it to my gums along my lower teeth. I counted her put in 31 stitches. Duke was an awesome friend as always and drove me home afterwards. I was pretty out of it in the car.

When I got home I rinsed out my mouth and took some pictures, just for fun. Since I'd imagine that most of you don't want to look inside my mouth ever, let alone post-op, I'm just posting links to the pictures. This picture is of my gums. The light colored stuff is the skin from the roof of my mouth. And this picture is the remnants of the roof of my mouth. Sorry, it's really tough to take a picture of the roof of your own mouth, especially when you're in pain. But anyway, the light colored stuff there is the back of my throat all normal and healthy. The gross red area is what's left of my palate...I was still bleeding quite a bit at the time. The dark areas by my teeth are where the skin is actually missing.

So she gave me prescriptions for an antiseptic mouth rinse and for Percocet. I got the rinse, but I didn't bother having the Percocet filled. I've been surviving all right on ibuprofen. She also gave me a mouth guard to wear all the time that protects the roof of my mouth. I love this thing. It gives me the illusion of intactness and while I have it in, I basically have no pain up there. My gums, though, are another matter entirely. They hurt unless I'm drugged up. And they hurt when I move my lip despite drugs. Which means they hurt when I talk or smile or attempt to use a spoon, drink from a glass, or use a straw. Plus I can't eat anything that would require me to actually chew it. So far the only thing I've been able to think of that I can eat given these limitations is cold (hot hurts the roof of my mouth through the mouth guard) over-cooked (soft enough to not really have to chew) spiral pasta (which I can pick up with my fingers and put in my mouth thereby bypassing all lip contact). Yum yum.

But anyway, that's over! From here on out I have only good things to look forward to. Speaking of good things, Half Price Books is having a sale this weekend starting tomorrow! An additional 20% off everything. If you have one in your neighborhood you should go! You can bet I'll be there.