Sunday, May 20, 2007
Wisdom Can Be Painful (Or: Much Ado About Nothing, Act V, Sc. 1)
On 2:20 last Friday, I turned in the last piece of work associated with the classes I took this semester, which means that I am officially finished with my first year of graduate school. Admittedly, there are still a few rather significant loose ends I still need to clear up before I can offically take a summer hiatus from the world of academia. There's still the matter of my first year research paper, which I submitted in March to my professor. Three months later, and I've learned nothing definite regarding its fate besides being told by said professor that "it's on my agenda." Hopefully I can get that squared away before the June 15th deadline for my department, or the June 1st deadline for the conference I hope to present it at in September.
But aside from that and some other departmental paperwork, as of Friday I was basically halfway to my general exams and a master's degree in the history of science. Needless to say, I considered this worthy of celebration, so I took a trip to visit my girlfriend. After a nice dinner out on the town, everything seemed to be lining up for a nice quiet evening at home...with one exception. For the past few days I had been suffering from a rather annoying toothache on the right side of my mouth. Thanks to slightly more intense dental hygiene regimen, it had disappeared by Thursday. I had thought it was gone for good.
Sadly for me, but fortunately for the five people who enjoy reading my blog, I was mistaken. Otherwise, I wouldn't have anything about which to write.
As fate should have it, my toothache began to reassert itself during the rather unimpressive season finale of Law and Order on NBC. (Hey look, it's Jeffrey Tambor playing an incompetent judge!) Despite taking several over the counter painkillers, my toothache grew so powerful that I was unable to sleep. Even basic tooth-related tasks like closing my mouth caused excrutiating pain. Which is why I was up at 7:00 in the morning on a Saturday waiting for dentists to open to see if I could schedule an emergency appointment. Fortunately, there was a dental office open on weekends reasonably nearby, and my girlfriend (confirming her incredible awesomeness, yet again), traveled with me to wait for an appointment.
There was some concern I might not get a chance to see anyone, especially when I thought, incorrectly as it turned out, that I had misplaced my dental insurance card. Plus, the guy next to us kept saying that the office was "TERRIBLE!" and that he hated it so much he was going to leave. And then he did, five minutes before the staff tried to call him in. Thanks to the suddenly smaller slate of patients, I was able to see someone after less than an hour of waiting.
After explaining my problem, the hygienist pointed me towards a very fancy machine, I quickly learned was a panoramic X-Ray machine. I stood very still while the device rotated around my skull, taking pictures on all sides. A quick online search reveals that the resulting image can also be called an orthopantogram or a panorex. However, as soon as it was developed and my girlfriend and I saw it, it quickly took on greater significance.
You know how normally when dentists (or any other experts) point out problems on a X-Rays to a layman, it requires some type of explanation so that ordinary laypeople can figure out what's going on?
This was not necessary here. In my haste on Saturday, I forgot to grab a copy of this image for my records. Nevertheless, I have recreated it with nearly flawless precision below using state of the art digital imaging technology. Based on this image, see if you can ascertain what was wrong with the teeth in my lower jaw.
Yes, you guessed it. I was suffering from a case of poor dental resolution. As soon as they had re-rendered my orthodontic vector framework and remodulated the enamel's Gaussian blur, my teeth would be just fine.
Except for the wisdom tooth embedded underneath my gumline and rotated ninety degrees towards the front of my mouth. The one that was steadily growing into my penultimate molar, leading to painful swelling, infection, and the sudden realization that I might have to start on that all-liquid diet that all the celebrities keep endorsing on late night television. My girlfriend, who had already had her wisdom teeth out, was still startled at the sheer geometric absurdity of two teeth forming a right angle in a person's mouth.
An honest-to-God dentist finally dropped by a few moments later to confirm what my girlfriend and I had already figured out. (Sing it with me now: "One of these teeth is not like the others...one of these teeth is GOUGING INTO MY JAW!") He recommended surgery after a full regimen of antibiotics and painkillers, which I've been told by oral surgery veterans is par for the course. He then wrote me some prescriptions and directed me to the front desk to schedule my day under the knife. All in all, despite the rage of that one patient who walked out, it was a relatively pleasant experience...painless, even. The only difficulties emerged because my health insurance office was not open on Saturday, I had to pay for the X-rays and couldn't get a date pinned down on the calendar to extract the offending molar.
Still, I felt somewhat validated upon learning that my pain was not imaginary, and after a quick trip to the supermarket to pick up my new prescription painkillers (now with codeine!) we returned to my girlfriend's apartment where I was swiftly medicated. The painkillers took a while to have any sort of effect. I was able to sit through the entire DVD of Newsies, that classic Disney tale of labor relations and choreographed street life (Who knew that Batman started out his life as rabble-rousing newspaper vendor?) without any noticeable change. But shortly thereafter, I was getting drowsy and ended up napping through most of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me despite both Charlie Pierce and Adam Felber being on the panel. Thankfully, when we got dinner that evening, the pain had subsided to the point where I could eat solid food...at least on one side of my mouth. And, after a public television screening of one of my favorite films ( 12 Angry Men), I was even able to sleep through the night.
So all in all, it could be a lot worse. Sure, I have to get my jaw sliced open, but at least I got all of my papers done before the surgery. And thanks to the medication, I can even enjoy some substantive last meals, which is rather comforting. Not that I mind gorging on ice cream, pudding, soup, and yogurt, mind you...but I enjoy chewing. I've been doing it for a while, I'm used to it, and I think it's an underrated part of the eating experience. I'm going to miss it while it's gone.
But, such is the price we pay to remedy the perpendicular teeth in our lives.
More news on my wisdom tooth extraction and the previously promised tales from Underwood High will be coming shortly.
On 2:20 last Friday, I turned in the last piece of work associated with the classes I took this semester, which means that I am officially finished with my first year of graduate school. Admittedly, there are still a few rather significant loose ends I still need to clear up before I can offically take a summer hiatus from the world of academia. There's still the matter of my first year research paper, which I submitted in March to my professor. Three months later, and I've learned nothing definite regarding its fate besides being told by said professor that "it's on my agenda." Hopefully I can get that squared away before the June 15th deadline for my department, or the June 1st deadline for the conference I hope to present it at in September.
But aside from that and some other departmental paperwork, as of Friday I was basically halfway to my general exams and a master's degree in the history of science. Needless to say, I considered this worthy of celebration, so I took a trip to visit my girlfriend. After a nice dinner out on the town, everything seemed to be lining up for a nice quiet evening at home...with one exception. For the past few days I had been suffering from a rather annoying toothache on the right side of my mouth. Thanks to slightly more intense dental hygiene regimen, it had disappeared by Thursday. I had thought it was gone for good.
Sadly for me, but fortunately for the five people who enjoy reading my blog, I was mistaken. Otherwise, I wouldn't have anything about which to write.
As fate should have it, my toothache began to reassert itself during the rather unimpressive season finale of Law and Order on NBC. (Hey look, it's Jeffrey Tambor playing an incompetent judge!) Despite taking several over the counter painkillers, my toothache grew so powerful that I was unable to sleep. Even basic tooth-related tasks like closing my mouth caused excrutiating pain. Which is why I was up at 7:00 in the morning on a Saturday waiting for dentists to open to see if I could schedule an emergency appointment. Fortunately, there was a dental office open on weekends reasonably nearby, and my girlfriend (confirming her incredible awesomeness, yet again), traveled with me to wait for an appointment.
There was some concern I might not get a chance to see anyone, especially when I thought, incorrectly as it turned out, that I had misplaced my dental insurance card. Plus, the guy next to us kept saying that the office was "TERRIBLE!" and that he hated it so much he was going to leave. And then he did, five minutes before the staff tried to call him in. Thanks to the suddenly smaller slate of patients, I was able to see someone after less than an hour of waiting.
After explaining my problem, the hygienist pointed me towards a very fancy machine, I quickly learned was a panoramic X-Ray machine. I stood very still while the device rotated around my skull, taking pictures on all sides. A quick online search reveals that the resulting image can also be called an orthopantogram or a panorex. However, as soon as it was developed and my girlfriend and I saw it, it quickly took on greater significance.
You know how normally when dentists (or any other experts) point out problems on a X-Rays to a layman, it requires some type of explanation so that ordinary laypeople can figure out what's going on?
This was not necessary here. In my haste on Saturday, I forgot to grab a copy of this image for my records. Nevertheless, I have recreated it with nearly flawless precision below using state of the art digital imaging technology. Based on this image, see if you can ascertain what was wrong with the teeth in my lower jaw.
Yes, you guessed it. I was suffering from a case of poor dental resolution. As soon as they had re-rendered my orthodontic vector framework and remodulated the enamel's Gaussian blur, my teeth would be just fine.
Except for the wisdom tooth embedded underneath my gumline and rotated ninety degrees towards the front of my mouth. The one that was steadily growing into my penultimate molar, leading to painful swelling, infection, and the sudden realization that I might have to start on that all-liquid diet that all the celebrities keep endorsing on late night television. My girlfriend, who had already had her wisdom teeth out, was still startled at the sheer geometric absurdity of two teeth forming a right angle in a person's mouth.
An honest-to-God dentist finally dropped by a few moments later to confirm what my girlfriend and I had already figured out. (Sing it with me now: "One of these teeth is not like the others...one of these teeth is GOUGING INTO MY JAW!") He recommended surgery after a full regimen of antibiotics and painkillers, which I've been told by oral surgery veterans is par for the course. He then wrote me some prescriptions and directed me to the front desk to schedule my day under the knife. All in all, despite the rage of that one patient who walked out, it was a relatively pleasant experience...painless, even. The only difficulties emerged because my health insurance office was not open on Saturday, I had to pay for the X-rays and couldn't get a date pinned down on the calendar to extract the offending molar.
Still, I felt somewhat validated upon learning that my pain was not imaginary, and after a quick trip to the supermarket to pick up my new prescription painkillers (now with codeine!) we returned to my girlfriend's apartment where I was swiftly medicated. The painkillers took a while to have any sort of effect. I was able to sit through the entire DVD of Newsies, that classic Disney tale of labor relations and choreographed street life (Who knew that Batman started out his life as rabble-rousing newspaper vendor?) without any noticeable change. But shortly thereafter, I was getting drowsy and ended up napping through most of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me despite both Charlie Pierce and Adam Felber being on the panel. Thankfully, when we got dinner that evening, the pain had subsided to the point where I could eat solid food...at least on one side of my mouth. And, after a public television screening of one of my favorite films ( 12 Angry Men), I was even able to sleep through the night.
So all in all, it could be a lot worse. Sure, I have to get my jaw sliced open, but at least I got all of my papers done before the surgery. And thanks to the medication, I can even enjoy some substantive last meals, which is rather comforting. Not that I mind gorging on ice cream, pudding, soup, and yogurt, mind you...but I enjoy chewing. I've been doing it for a while, I'm used to it, and I think it's an underrated part of the eating experience. I'm going to miss it while it's gone.
But, such is the price we pay to remedy the perpendicular teeth in our lives.
More news on my wisdom tooth extraction and the previously promised tales from Underwood High will be coming shortly.
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