"Dead man walking here! Dead man walking! Walking the Green Mile."

That's obviously from the movie "The Green Mile". If anyone's seen that movie, first off, it was a really great movie. Secondly, I'm referring to the part where the prison guards would take the inmate out of their cell when it was time for the execution. Then they would shout out that quote to let the other inmates know what was going on, kind of a proclaimation.

The point is, I kind of felt that way today. I had my surgery to get my 4 wisdom teeth taken out today around noon, and there was so much hype about a whole bunch of things: how I was gonna feel, would it hurt, what would I look like, etc. Frankly, with all the talking I did with everyone, it had a feeling they were proclaiming my death. Was it really going to be that bad?

In the end, no it wasn't, at all. I have to say that it didn't measure up to be nearly as miserable as everyone claimed it to be, and I felt a huge feeling of relief when I woke up in the bed with this cute nurse tending to me. I realize that a big part of the dread I was feeling was self-inflicted by all the things I was telling myself. But I also know that a whole lot of those things were drawn from comments I heard from other people about it. I heard a whole variety of comments:

- when they put you to sleep, it's like you blink once, and it's done
- you can't do anything right for the first day
- you're gonna be asleep all day for the first day
- it's gonna swell like a biatch

Well although I realize that the experience is different for everyone based on their circumstances. When I woke up, I saw one of these other girls who had the same operation having the hardest time swallowing her drink. She would try to drink, but her throat was so sore that it wouldn't go down, and only blood would come out of her mouth. It got so bad that she refused to drink anything out of fear of how tough it was, and I'm guessing the pain. The nurses though enforce a 2 drink minimum rule, before you're let out of the facility. This is because of the fact that we weren't allowed to eat/drink anything past midnight of the night before, so our energy and blood sugar would have been low by now.

I felt bad for the girl honestly, because it wasn't out of her stubbornness that she didn't drink, but more out of fear. The nurses kept insisting that they were willing to stay for 3 more hours until their shift ended, before letting her go, if she didn't drink. Kind of reminded me of the classic argument between child and parent when the child has to have their cough medicine:

"Drink you ginger ale..."

" I don wannaeh"

"You have to drink it before we leave, I can stay here for a long time before you leave."

"Nuh-uh!"

I'll shed some light on how my experience was.

I think the weirdest part for me was the sleeping part. They told me about when it was being ministered, then I could feel the weird taste in my mouth they described to me. Then, it's not like it happened instantly like one of my friends said, but I woke up as if I was waking up from my bed, and everything felt fine except for just freezing in my mouth and tongue. I don't even remember being knocked out passed the weird taste, but it was completely fine.

For those of you still needing to get them taken out, don't worry, it doesn't hurt when you get up. I know for myself, that was the biggest concern coming up to the operation. But the main symptons I felt were the freezing, a sore throat, and really tired because of the drug and another thing. The night before, I went into work and finished preparing the tax return receipts for the church offering. I worked from 11:45 pm until 8:15 am that day. It was almost a good thing that I had the surgery because it meant that I had a day of sleep scheduled the next day anyway. Also it was a good thing I burnt 2 whole seasons of Justice League Unlimited onto a dvd, or I would have been painfully bored at work while folding letters/receipts. I ended up watching 1.5 whole seasons.

Anyway back to the operation, I feel great in comparison to what I thought I'd feel. Okay so the ice pack thing might be the best look for me, but it worked out extremely well that I drink an excessive amount of liquids just in my normal life, because they tell you to drink 2-3 litres a day.

I don't want to babble on more about it, as it seems drawn out as it is. I know the biggest challenge for me is going to be keeping the extraction sites from being infected and cleaning them out properly. They also said that Sunday night is when the pain should be the worse, so I'm bracing for that. All in all, the operation was waay better/easier than expected, minimal pain for me. Then again, I'm used to having my mouth frozen for when I had cavities and root canals done. You want to talk about pain, let's talk Root Canals.....