Entertainment For Lively Minds
Impacted wisdom tooth extraction
Posted by Albert Edward on 19 March 2010 - 11:32am.
When:
17/03/10
Where:
NHS Hospital
Comments:
'Sorry for the wait, did you hear the news earlier?' says our nurse, a South African, 'we're short of beds and they want to close 10,000 more.'
That morning I'd been busy following the pre-op instructions to 'please have a bath or shower before attending your operation', wondering who needs to be told this stuff. Not nice, middle-class boys like me; I don't go to the corner shop without having a bath.
The bed shortage is why we have to wait, so for now I sit reading Word, and I get through Tony Visconti and Writing a Super-Hit before we follow the nurse up to the ward. There, I put on my little nightie and read about Wendy Fonarow, and I'm still wondering why she's called a book about UK indie 'Empire of Dirt' as they wheel me 'into theatre'.
'I could tell you were nervous cos you just stuck your head in your magazine,' says the group joker when we're back on the ward and surfing the after-effects of the anaesthetic.
Our nurse looks like she's seen it all before. No doubt she has.
The Audience:
A mixed crowd, most of whom seem to have vast experience of sitting in hospitals, and are practiced when it comes to complaining about the fact.
Food & Drink:
Nil by mouth, I'm afraid. At one point, an unseen old gentleman in the ward next door makes such a revolting sound that our group joker quips, 'I was hungry, I'm not now.'
It Made Me Think...:
Oh, about mortality, all that.
Update!
Even though this happened a whole issue of Word ago, the pain has only just let up, so my advice if you have an impacted wisdom tooth is to invest in Ibuprofen and leave the wasabi nuts alone for a while.