My oral surgery: part one

"It's inflamed," he said as he jammed a metallic rod into my mouth.

At this point of time, I was like ohcrap, ohcrap, ohcrap, please don't let it be a surgery. Please. 

"Relax, there is no need to extract it..." He probably saw my expression and -- in an attempt to calm me down -- said so. It worked.

Thank God, I muttered to myself.

"...yet," he quickly added. Think of a small kid who had been making a sandcastle when all of the sudden, an older kid came and stepped on the sandcastle obliterating it. Imagine how the smaller kid's expression looked and you'd have a decent grasp about how my face looked at that time.

"It's your wisdom tooth," he turned off the light and righted my seat. "Yours is a pretty late case, eh? Normally wisdom teeth grow between age 20 and 25."

"I'M TWENTY YEAR OLD," I said as I lightly hit his shoulder with the back of my hand.

"Oh. I thought you were 27. Sorry," his gaze fixed on the note he was writing. "Here," he said as he ripped his note. "Take this into the lab and ask them to x-ray your teeth.

I took the notes and -- on my way out -- I glanced on a mirror that was hanging next to the exit. Do I really look THAT old? I sighed and left for the lab.

--

The lab was empty, save for some children and their nurses. So I registered for a dental x-ray and was told to wait. In a room near me was a kid whose mouth was open. I could see a young doctor pushing his long rod into her throat (okay, that was NOT a sexual innuendo for you dirty minds out there). And the kid cried. Her cry was loud and annoying as heck. I was really tempted to storm into the room and staple her lips, but I didn't bring my stapler with me. And my name was called soon after, so I went into the x-ray room. Lucky kid.

"Mr. Kent?" The operator welcomed me into the room and gestured me to take a seat while he prepared the x-ray machine.

I nodded.

"Don't be so tense," he was wearing a masker, but I could see him smiling from underneath it. "What seems to be the problem?"

"My wisdom tooth."

"Ahh.. Yes, common problem for people aged 25 and above," he flicked a button and the x-ray machine whirred intensely.

"I'M TWENTY YEAR OLD. THANK YOU VERY MUCH." I silently swore if I met someone today who thought I'm 25 or older and say it out loud again, I'll shove my driver's license in his face.

"Haha," he laughed. He laughed. HE LAUGHED. "Please step here and bite this mouth-piece. And try not to move around while it is taking your x-ray picture."

I stepped forward and bit the thing with an 'I could very well be biting you right now' expression on my face.

"Please stay still," he said. The machine started rotating around my face and made a loud-weird-annoying-continuous sound for around 30 seconds. My teeth are getting dry...

The machine stopped abruptly. "Done. Please wait outside and I'll call your name when your x-ray picture is done," he said. "You may now stop biting," he added. Apparently I was still biting the mouth-piece. I was still biting it hard.

--

I came back to my dentist with my dental x-ray picture. He opened the envelope, held the content to a light and examined it. "Yep," he said as he put the x-ray down and folded his glasses. "Looks like we need to do a surgery." I could feel cold sweat running through my back. "When do you have to go back to America?" He asked as he carefully put the x-ray back into the envelope.

"December," I gulped. "December 12th."

"Oh, that's quite... short." He glanced at a calendar sitting next to his desk and said, "what about Sunday 10 AM?"

This time it was my turn to take a glance at the calendar. Sunday, Sunday... Then it hit me. Today was a Friday night.

--

It is currently 11 PM on Saturday. And I'm having my oral surgery in less than 12 hours. Oh and by the way, I hate porridge. The slimy sensation I feel when I swallow it is just so... slimy. So if I'm not posting anything in my blog in the next few days, it's safe to say I either die from the sheer pain of the surgery or from starving to death.