Tooth Puller, 1609 - Caravaggio

What an experience. I love that I get to say this.

My family was so worried about this, but I felt a sense of excitement. Although I did started to have anxiety the night before and the day of.

I've been wanting braces since high school and this is a big step towards having a nice smile. I never smiled in pictures and when talking to people, and it sucks. I'm always self-conscious about it. I just want to smile. But a certain programming in my brain, either self-written or installed from the society's standards of beauty makes it really hard.

So I'm glad I got to do this today. I felt really blessed to have the chance to fix my teeth. 4 of my wisdom teeth were taken out and the other 4 were for braces.

The doctor I visited was Dr Wong Foot Meow. He's an Oral and maxillofacial surgeon that's on the National specialist register and has won awards. So I was in good hands.

Upon arrival I could feel myself feeling a little tense and jittery, fearful yet curious.

I sat down in the chair and after he got my confirmation about the entire operation, he injected the IV sedation (my second one this month). I could feel the spiciness of the liquid travel into through my bloodstream. I immediately felt calm and light headed. I asked if 8 teeth is ok and he answered with no hesitation, a confident and strong "of course, it's nothing big".

I was asked to bite a black block with a strip for my left teeth, and everything began really quickly. As I entered into a "twilight" state between waking and sleeping consciousness, I started to feel sharp injections into my gum, but I felt minimal pain.

Then it was a lot of drilling sounds, some pulling and shaking, I could slightly hear the detachment of my teeth, but I felt nothing. Thank God for anesthetics.

About an hour later, I could feel phantom shaking and pulling, like my brain stored the memory of the actions and the effects only showed up later once I was conscious, it was pretty trippy.

The pulse oximeter on my left finger orchestrated the irregular beeping sound on a machine displaying a number oscillating around 99, producing a syncopation effect that I've heard before in songs and in jazz.

In this state, I remember I couldn't hold on to a single thought. Every thought was ephemeral and fleeting. I could see SIDEXIS NEXT GENERATION on the screen in front of me. It looks like a software that this clinic uses to manage patients.

I remember feeling good at this moment. I felt no pain. I was weirdly happy. It was the drugs.

Around 2 p.m., I was asked to sit outside the waiting room to receive my medication. I got a blue liquid (to sit in my mouth and NEVER RINSE), two antibiotics, a painkiller, and some sleeping pills.

I reached home and started watching Kiki's Delivery Service. It was great at distracting myself from the pain. Jiji is adorable. I want a black cat with his personality. At this point the anesthetics were wearing off and the pain really started to kick in. I was bleeding a lot from 8 holes in my mouth. My mouth was firing pain signals that my brain could no longer ignore. My gums were being torn apart on a microscopic level and they were on fire. It was agonizing. Around 5 p.m. my pain was excruciating. I was squeezing on a pillow, clenching my fist, telling myself I can hold on just a little longer before taking pain killers.

I eventually cave, paused Kiki with 10 minutes left, and went to kill the pain. I also ate some tofu pudding at this point. The pain killers were so effective and I stopped feeling pain about 40 minutes after. I could function again.

After Kiki I watched some of Porco Rosso. The action was fun. I'm very curious how this man turned into a pig.

I ate more tofu pudding with my family at dinner time. After that I went back to do some work.

It's now 11:16 p.m. and I don't remember what I was doing the past 3 hours.

I hope I can sleep tonight. I just took another painkiller and I'm waiting for the effects to kick in.

I was thinking how there's no way I can give up now. My dad is supporting me financially in all of this.

I have braces scheduled two weeks after, and fundoplication surger another two weeks after that. The first half of this year will be about healing and recovery, and the rest will be full of possibilities and growth. I'm optimistic.