Yep, that's my head as of last weekend. I had my two remaining wisdom teeth extracted by Dr. Bell at the Head & Neck Surgical Associates in NW Portland, Oregon. Le Wife says it got a little larger than this at the peak on Sunday morning.

I had the other two extracted in my twenties back in Chicago; a truly horrible experience. I was naive for picking a dentist arbitrarily from a listing and this particular dentist was an idiot for trying to do it. He said he could take all four out without much of a problem. I hadn't gone to a dentist in years and it seemed like a reasonable thing to do; I was in my twenties, so it was time to get the wisdom teeth removed. After multiple hours of pain and agony, he removed 1.5 teeth out of four total. He packed me full of gauze and handed me the address of a surgeon. I drove my corvette to the other office and the surgeon finished taking out the second tooth in about five minutes.

So, I waited about ten years or so on removing the other two. When the Wife and I moved to Portland, we found our dentist, Dr. Halvorsen, right away via referral from a friend and we've been keeping up reasonably well with six month cleanings.

At my last cleaning, I decided to have the final two teeth removed. I knew it would take some time to recoup and the baby is coming in late April, so I made plans to have the procedure in early January and be done with it. They recommended Dr. Bell's office for some super impacted wisdom teeth.

Dr. Bell and his staff did and outstanding job. I had a consultation and scheduled the procedure for about two weeks later. They were friendly and efficient. I arrived at the office, got into the chair, chatted with the nurses, got prepped with an IV, received some drugs, and was sitting back in my car in about 60 minutes total. I nearly didn't believe him when Dr. Bell said the entire procedure would last between 60 and 90 minutes during an earlier consultation.

I *felt* like I could drive home, and the Wife just laughed. I knew I couldn't but the drugs didn't make me feel wobbly or anything, they just targeted the pain.

That night I was back on the computer working on some code. I was prescribed some oxycodone and ibuprofen for the pain and swelling and thankfully, it didn't interrupt my coding much; albeit I might have been a little slower and more *creative*.

The pills worked good as long as I kept my belly full of food. I found out that I got nauseous if I didn't eat enough food with the pills and/or I would get an stomach ulcer feeling. After I figured that out, it was much better. I probably can't go to the gym for another two or three weeks, so this isn't going to help my gut much.

Yet, I'm glad I timed the procedure with the MLK holiday because this past week stinks with pain management and thinking really hard about code. I think I only snapped with cranky responses a few times during the four day work week. :) Its much better to work alone when you're in pain. I figure another couple of weeks I'll be good as new, er... good as a thirty-four year old new guy.