I lost some weight today, but now I have a mouthbleed. That's right, wisdom tooth number three made its final curtain call today. The upper right is currently enjoying the early stages of retirement. There's one left in my mouth -- the upper left -- but it's behaving: it's not even showing through the gums and, at this point, isn't likely to.

Some people have a rough time with wisdom tooth extractions, but all three of mine have been a breeze. The procedure itself is far less of a trial to endure than getting a filling done, and I've not particularly experienced any real pain after the fact. The only annoying thing is biting on gauze for an hour or two to stop the bleeding, and then you can't rinse right away until the clot can solidify.

By contrast, Leen was in dire pain for a week after one wisdom tooth extraction. It was a more disruptive procedure than usual, because the roots were splayed apart, rather than being nice and huddled together, so more damage had to be done to the gums to get it all out. She had a second wisdom tooth pulled, and that was much better but still more of an issue than any of mine.

Novocaine -- which, today I discovered is not actually "novocaine" at all but some chemical derivative of novocaine, which hasn't been particularly used since roughly the fifties -- is a great thing, but the lingering effects are irritating. I don't know that I can describe it better than just saying that being numbed in the mouth is *tiring* -- not tiring in the sense of being exhausting but more like the "sick and tired" kind of tired. At present, I cannot curl my upper lip or crinkle the lower part of my nose. The muscles just below the protrusive part of my cheekbones feel taut and tense, even though they aren't. It will be nice when this stuff wears off.

But it's all worth not feeling anything at the time. Experiencing the procedure itself is the craziest thing. Leen found it traumatizing, but I'm just fascinated. See, you can't feel any sensation or pain, but you feel all the pressure. So when the dentist has a vice grip on your tooth and is yanking and bending and yanking and hauling, it feels like he somehow has a vice grip on your actual *jawbone*, except that you can't feel the actual point of contact. It's a curious sort of thing, watching and feeling a sensitive part of your body being ripped out and yet not feeling any pain at all.

This time it was even better, because the dentist had an intern or an apprentice or something observing him, so the dentist was making instructive comments as he worked.

"Now, first we see if he's numb. And we do that by taking a fairly sharp instrument [inserts sharp instrument into my mouth] and slicing down and separating the tooth from the gum [I feel pressure as the knife works], and you watch his eyes to see if he can feel anything."

So then the pliers-like things go into my mouth, and he grabs hold and wiggles it a bit ("You see it moving?") and hauls way over one way ("You want to yank it one way and keep the tension on to let the gums loosen...") and then the other way, and then back the first way, and then it was out, although I didn't realize it until he said, "Whoops, it was too easy."

I took the tooth home with me, of course. I have the other two around somewhere. Once it was out, I could see why it had to come. There were three or so different places where cavities had formed, because the way it was angled in my mouth, it was pretty much impossible to keep clean.

I'm glad it's out. Wisdom teeth are a pain. The lower ones had caused a LOT of soreness from rubbing up against the back of my mouth. This one wasn't as bad, but it's just nicer to have some room back there. There are far too many nerves in the mouth for sharp bones to protrude improperly. And my wisdom teeth weren't even all that messed up compared to some, which can come in sideways or twisted. My lower wisdom teeth were pretty much perfectly aligned -- there was just not enough room for them -- and this third one was only partially exposed and angled slightly.

I'll be at work tomorrow. My co-workers, knowing what I was leaving early today for, were doubtful when I told them I'd be in at the regular time, but wisdom tooth extractions never messed up my schedule before. I suppose this one *could* have had splayed roots and not come out as easily as the others, but, eh, somehow I knew.

When the dentist was struggling around, trying to get to the back of my mouth, he said something about how we should only have two teeth, right up in front, where it's easy to reach. "These back teeth are for the birds," he said, and then realized that birds don't have teeth at all. "I guess they have beaks. They've got the right idea. I wonder what beak decay would be like."

Now I wonder that too.