would you rather fail with your friends, or succeed all by yourself

i had my 4 wisdom teeth pulled today. i picked up my antibiotics and hydrocodone pain killers from walgreens yesterday and took 4 antibiotics this morning before the surgery. dave picked me up and drove me to the oral surgeon at around 7:45am. we waited around for a while and they gave dave some pamphlets for how to take care of me (heh) and then he left for work.

i was taken to a small surgery room and sat in a semi-upright dentist-type chair. the nurse(?) put a warm blanket on me and took my blood pressure. we made chit-chat about work and how she hates computers until the doctor came in with another assistant. the doctor said "oh, you didn't shave for me, are you going for the miami vice look?" and then proceeded to explain what miami vice was and how they made the scruffy look and sport-coats-over-tshirts the "in" look back in the 80's. i kept looking up at the iv bag hanging from the ceiling like, "just knock me out already." for some reason he, again, brought up the fact that i own my own house and so the assistants kept asking me questions like how old i was, whether i live alone, and whether i have a girlfriend. one mentioned that she had a daughter my age...

eventually they numbed up my arm and put the needle in. the doctor said "ok josh, this is the good stuff" and they put an oxygen tube across my nose and my eyelids became heavy and i was out.

the next thing i remember, i was being nudged and i opened my eyes and it was over. someone said "i'm going to put this gauze in your mouth" and then they got dave and they walked me over to a waiting room. i sat there and woke up a bit more and talked to dave. eventually the doctor came in and told me it went just as he explained it would in the initial consultation and asked if i had any questions. i said no and they left, then i got in dave's car and we left.

we stopped at burger king on the way home to pick up a chocolate shake (the pamphlet said i had to have one). getting out of dave's car at home, i was a little off-balance at first but i could walk fine. i drank some of my shake with a spoon and took one of the pain-killers before the novocaine could wear off (my bottom lip was completely numb so it was hard to drink water). i bought my laptop down and read e-mail while dave and i watched tv, and eventually i got tired and dozed off. i woke up and took the rest of my anti-biotics and dave left for work.

i went upstairs and eventually took a nap. i woke up and took another pain killer because i was starting to get a dull pain in my jaw, and packed in some gauze to catch more of the blood. i could finally feel my bottom lip and i used an icepack for a while but it doesn't stay cold for very long. i microwaved some ravioli and had a coke. no pain, but i keep feeling things in my mouth that i think are pieces of food but they're just the stitches. i had some chicken soup and another coke and i'm feeling fine.

i'm wondering if the pain will get worse after this or if this is the extent of it. i feel some numbness in the back of my jaw where the teeth came out, but it doesn't really hurt. i'm not tired at all but i should probably go to sleep so i can wake up at a normal time tomorrow morning and see if i'm ok to go to work.