I Would Kill for a Bag of Doritos

I would kill for a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. The only problem is I couldn't eat them if I had them. Oral surgery earlier this week saw to that. Now I'm on this diet of overly soft foods that, if I eat enough, sort of fill me up but certainly don't satisfy me.

Here's the deal. I got braces way back in my junior high school days. I distinctly remember my orthodontist lecturing me about the importance of brushing both my teeth and my gums to make sure they remain clean and healthy. I'm not saying I brushed my gums to death but I wasn't as gentle on them as I should've been.

Fast forward to a handful of decades later and I had recession that needed medical attention. My dentist kept telling me to get gum grafting done but I didn't have any pain. They never bothered me.

"Does cold water bother your teeth? Don't you have any sensitivity?" they asked year after year.

"No, I'm totally insensitive," I responded again and again.

Still, I finally realized I had to get this done because the pain would come one day. Or worse, maybe some of my teeth would just fall out. When I was a kid I'd watched both my grandpas deal with false teeth and I definitely don't want to go there.

I was given a pill to take prior to the gum grafting procedure that I was told knocks out 90 percent of patients. Well, count me among the "lucky" 10 percent, so I laid there in a quasi-loopy state as the needles came out and the shots went in followed by the scalpel and the removal of tissue from the roof of my mouth followed by transplanting it over three of my lower teeth. It didn't hurt but (not to get too graphic) I could feel the cuts being made and the stitches going in both the top of my mouth and over my teeth below. It was an eerie, icky kind of thing. Beforehand, the nurse did give me shades for my eyes and earphones to better dull my senses and so I didn't have to hear anything--other than the country music they played (ugh). Where's classic rock when you really, really need it?

Now I may sound like I'm complaining. I don't mean to do so (too much). I fully appreciate and applaud modern technology and the skills of a talented surgeon that make such procedures an in-and-out kind of deal. Heck, I walked in at 8:15 a.m. and my wife helped out to the car only some two and a half hours later.

The thing is, outside of routine checkups, I just don't like any kind of work on my teeth--AT ALL! It goes back to when I was about 10 or 11 years old. I visited the dentist to have a few baby teeth removed to clear the way for permanent teeth to follow. I was told it would be relatively quick and easy. The thing is one of them just didn't want to let go. It had some sort of stubborn root or something that snapped off so the dentist had to dig out. As I laid there, the procedure seemed to go on F-O-R-E-V-E-R! I was traumatized. I had other teeth pulled later in life, including four when I received braces in my early teens and wisdom teeth my senior  year of high school, but the mental scars were there. And with all that in mind, then came my most recent oral adventure.

Battered but not defeated

Right now, three days after the procedure, I look in the mirror and my face is still puffy and swollen. My wife commented that it has the shape of a woman's body. You know, kinda curvy but more slender in the middle than the top and bottom. Ice pack treatments applied multiple times a day aren't seeming to kick in and help that yet. And I've got purple and yellow bruising that's now seeping through and showing up on my face. I'm kinda afraid to see what the inside looks like but my mouth is still too sore to pry open and get an all-encompassing, panoramic view.

I also don't like the hazy, semi-thick-headed feeling of taking a cycle of medication. Good thing I'm done with most of that by the weekend. The doctor also told me not to talk because I need to heal. I get that because it hurts when I do. But what really bugs me is the pulsating that I feel in the top of my mouth when I'm really still--like when I'm sitting quietly or (worse) as I lay in bed at night trying to fall asleep. I always thought my heart was in my chest, not located immediately above the roof of my mouth. What's up with that slow beating sensation?

And that takes me back full circle to the food dilemma. I'm currently eating yogurt, soups, overcooked pasta, bread and milk, Chef Boyardee ravioli, graham crackers and milk, pulverized Ritz crackers sprinkled into soup and not gummed down with my tongue until everything is overly soggy--you get the idea. What I wouldn't give to open wide and take a massive bite out of a burger, an apple, corn on the cob, SweetTarts or Spree, a candy bar, french fries...you get the picture.

Oh yeah, the oral surgeon says my mouth won't fully heal for two to six months. I guess I'll have to stockpile my Doritos until then. Heavy, heavy sigh!