I had SUCH a good holiday at home in Minnesota. I saw so many of my friends and family. I got to meet my new niece, Evy, and spend some quality time with my 2 yr old niece, Charlotte. I ate lots of good food. I got some great gifts for both Christmas and my birthday. It was just really nice.
Well, it was all nice except for the whole wisdom tooth extraction part.
That's right, I decided to combine my vacay and a medical procedure. WEEEE! Here's the thing -- when I started my current job last January, I compared the two dental plan options and the HMO seemed better than the PPO. (and by "better", I mean "cheaper") But what I didn't realize is an HMO plan really restricts which dentists you can do to. You can read about my experience with a local dentist on my Yelp review. Clearly I wasn't going to let these people perform surgery on my face. But every dentist in the DC metro area that accepts my HMO plan was shady or just plain awful (based on reviews)! So I looked at my options in MN - as a long shot - but found that Metro Dentalcare, a chain across the Twin Cities, in fact accepted my Cigna HMO! YES. So that locked it in -- holiday break it was.
I scheduled the procedure for Dec 23rd - to give me some time to enjoy myself at home beforehand, but to get the surgery in early enough to be fully recovered before the Jan 1 drive back to DC. Bad choice. I ended up getting dry sockets (when the blood clot doesn't form over the hole, so you have exposed bone) and didn't sleep for three nights due to the THROBBING inner-ear pain. It was reminiscent of the aftermath of my tonsil removal back in 2003, for those of you who have experienced that joy.
Finally at 6am on Christmas morning, I paged my oral surgeon who, in turn told me to increase the vicodin and take it simultaneously with the ibuprofen. Let's be honest, he just wanted to go back to bed. But that worked. Christmas day was pain-free....from what I remember. Between my sleep deprivation and narcotics, I hit really high highs, then really low lows (aka I passed out about every 30 mins). MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Oh well, it's done and over with and I'll never have to worry about having my wisdom teeth removed again. And I'm on the PPO dental plan at work this year. 2011 is already lookin' up!
I'll share more about my time at home, some pics and an AMAZING cake recipe in my next post!
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