A few months ago, my Dentist informed me I had two wisdom teeth that have never had the guts to show their ugly heads. The bottom two were smart enough to never form at all, but the top two existed and were cowering behind my gums.

When my Dentist announced, “Houston! We’ve made contact!” I had no idea what he was talking about but he explained with his tiny, alien probe, he could access the wisdom tooth on the upper, east side and thought I should have it extracted.

I asked a lot of random people what they thought of this obvious scam and they all seemed to agree, the tooth should come out and my Dentist should buy a new boat.

Okay, but I will not take any drugs! (Had I learned nothing from James Frey?)

The extraction was ripe with Chapstick. I made a note to use a full gallon on my drive to the clinic, while I checked in at the front desk, as I walked into the operating room and as I was leaning back in the chair.

The surgery went as well as one could expect after someone shoves a needle up into your palette and all you can think of is how you may never be one of those new, ice cream flavour tasters now because your palette will be forever compromised after this.

I was even able to joke, “I didn’t even see the truck pull away when you tied the string in there.”

The surgery lasted less than 45 seconds and before the gauze was in my mouth, someone was hurrying me to my car.

I’m driving myself home? Is this because of the dumb joke and all of that extra lube I left on your fancy tools? Who is going to feel sorry for me if things went this smoothly?

Answer found on page 76: No one.

I guess I was relieved that aside from a little pain, I was going to feel fine in a couple of days.

Ahem. It’s been five days and I’ve yet to chew anything bigger than a single, cooked, quinoa kernel.

I woke up the next morning with a cheek the size of a watermelon and wondered if anyone would notice. The shock and horror on the faces of the other grocery store shoppers was enough to send me running.

The following morning, my cheek was discoloured; yellow and black with some weird skin texturizing that looked like an accident involving a cheese grater. It. Was. Awful. I looked like a clown and felt like the surgeon had forgotten to remove the needle from my palette. Ice cream will never taste the same.

My Father-In-Law reminds me I sometimes exaggerate but this morning—now Day 5, I woke up with a horn growing out of my right temple. It was a subtle 8” protrusion in the shape of a traffic cone growing from inside my head. Well that doesn’t seem right. Oh and did I mention, it had its own heart beat and took up an entire pillow.

I decided to review my post-operation instructions. There was mention of swelling—check, of discolouration—check, moderate pain—um, MODERATE? No mention of the horn. So just for shits and giggles, I called the Emergency After Hours phone number while supporting the horn with my other hand and sweeping up some mess the kids had made on the kitchen floor because oh right! Life doesn’t stop just because Mom is turning into a mammoth.

Let’s be fair. I have always tolerated pain very well. I don’t take pain killers and I’ve been known to stitch up an open wound with a sewing needle and some fishing line but this pain is almost too much to bear.

I could tell the on-call Doctor was nodding his head at all of the usual symptoms I was spouting at him. But then the horn thing had him concerned. He told me he was going to write a prescription because, “It sounds like something might be brewing.”

“Might be brewing?” Might? Brewing? Oh there’s no “might” about this sucker AND IT’S FULLY BREWED. I could use the horn to stir up the brew—that’s how real this is.

Greg offered to make me a protein shake for the billionth time in the last five days. He (and the girls) have been absolutely wonderful but if I drink one more meal I will use the horn to stab my way out of this house.

I am now on antibiotics and am piggy-backing Advil and Tylenol. Ironic because if someone actually climbed onto my back right now, I would collapse and die.

I may not remember writing this post and will most certainly never admit to writing it if any of the above (that I am in too much pain to review and/or edit) incriminates me in any way.

Ice cream time.

Fingers crossed.