Saturday, October 3

it all started at Paul's bday celebration dinner early august, where keith treat him and us all for some awesome steak at ECP. it was already medium rare, but i had difficulty chewing on it. what i didnt realize was that i was using my left side to chew on it more than balancing it out on both sides. so towards the end of the meal, my left wisdom tooth in the lower jaw started to give me unusual discomfort.

since i avoided chewing on my left, a few days later when my left lower tooth wasnt aching alr, my right started to feel slight discomfort too. so i was like thinking if i shd extract them tgt b4 my holiday ends. i went to this pte dental where my mom recommended for cleaning and advise. the dentist referred me to this Dr. Wu Loo Cheng at Alexandra Hospital. mom recently extracted a dying tooth by Dr Wu too. Dr Wu's so busy that i could only get an appointment with her 2 weeks later.

So after consultation and x-Ray with Dr Wu, (she's very quick) she advised me to just pull out all 4. cuz the ones causing discomfort were the bottom 2. and if i dont extract the top 2, they will grow out more and cause discomfort in the future. i needed surgery cuz my bottom 2 were buried. so she quote me a price of $1460 and advised me to get a referral letter from any polyclinic to get further subsidy until only $1180 is required. in the end only $800 was deducted from my mom's medisave. quite cheap hoh? maybe cuz they only needed surgery for the bottom 2.

Dr Wu only does surgery extraction at Jurong Medical Centre, which was just behind boon lay bus interchange. the nurses said Jurong Med and AH were under the same management. since my mom extracted her (normal) teeth at AH, she said that the service at Jurong Med was MUCH BETTER.


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today, i had to fast for 8h before the surgery. they said i couldnt even drink water! but during class i was so thirsty i sipped a bit. i had to endure my 3h morning class without eating sweets or drinking water to keep myself awake cuz i was sleeeepy. mama came to pick me up from sch, then signed those medisave forms at the counter and left while i walked in to change and wait alone.

After i changed, i was to sit and wait at this lounge area. the nurse told me that i had to wait for the 2 guys i saw in the lounge to extract first then it was my turn. so i just took a mag and sat there to read. then the anaesthestist came to the 1st guy (this chinese guy around my age with this huge eyes with a stuck up face) and asked him some questions before placing a needle into his vein above the opposite side of his left palm. i was trying hard to just look like i was looking and stoning. but the 2nd guy (this indian army officer) saw my face n then he asked if i was scared. i said yes to the pain and he laughed. asshole only. but he's very friendly. so after the anaesthetist insert it into the 2nd guy, he laughed after it was done cuz he knew i was freaking out a bit. LOL.

the anaesthetist said i had another option to smell this pungent gas if i was really afraid of needles but it will be very choking. so ok i would rather just put the needle in my hand, since i will already be coughing cuz of the dry throat. no need to make the cough worse. many nurses asked us patients on when was our last food and drink intake blah blah. then this other male medical nurse/doctor (couldnt tell) notice my sinus and asked if it was normal cuz if it was flu i would have to skip surgery today. WTF imagine i already put the needle in my hand and if i really had flu i would kill myself. argh.

reason why we cannot have food and water 6h b4 surgery is cuz when we are given general anaesthestic (GA) we cannot control our food flow and when this tube is inserted through the nose and down the throat to help us to breathe, the food might come out of the stomach and choke you. so yeap.

wasnt THAT worried cuz i've arisya's extraction's experience to prepare me for the worse. like after given the GA, you'll feel the room spinning like in the moview, and after you wake up your throat will be very dry cuz of the tube inserted. and it wont be pain for the next few days but more of discomfort.

so i was chatting a bit with the indian army officer before his turn. he wasnt extracting all 4 of his too cuz of any discomfort but cuz the army is gonna sent him to work in the USA for a year and part of the medical checkup thingy was to remove all wisdom teeth. WThell rite! his wife and 3yearold kid can go along with him for a year so isn't that like so darn cool! can experience each season once! (:

what i didnt expect was that the GA would give my hand this burning sensation. like it was PAINFUL man! ok so when it was finally my turn, the friendly nurse brought me into the theatre. omg. bloody HUGE room! they put my finger on this clip sensor and some sticky stuff on my chest to check my heart rate and stuff. before the nurse put anything on my body i would ask if it was painful. haha. scared ah.

then usually after your surgery, and you're wheeled out in another bed, the anaesthetist will follow and keep watch awhile incase of any excessive bleeding or choking or whatever. so my dear indian army officer chatfriend was having excessive bleeding so the anaesthetist took a while longer than usual to enter the theatre to put me to sleep. the nurse who attended to me started to talk to me, crack little jokes to calm me down. she said i was nervous. but i was freezing! their aircon free lidat sia. they put this vacuum cleaner kinda hose thing in between my legs to blow warm air up my body, it's called the Warmer. the nurse explained that when im almost done with my last tooth then Dr Wu will call the anaesthetist back to inject me with the "Reverse" of the GA so that i will wake up and only after everything's done.

so finally the anaesthetist came, and placed this oxygen mask over my mouth to ask me to breathe. wa. oxygen mask siaaaa. then the male medical nurse/doc who asked abt my sinus came to inject me with the GA. OMG. BURNING UP MY ARM. then my eyelids started to get heavy. things were starting to be abit blur. but dont have the spinning effect like what arisya experienced like in those movies lei! :( HAHAHA! i was trying to resist shutting my eyes. but the next time i tried to open again, i was in another room facing hdb flats which e nurse alr told me.

when i opened my eyes, it was still hard to focus my vision and i coughed quite a bit cuz the throat had abrasion and was very dry. so i asked some random nurse for a cup of water. they had those surface table above my knees. and i saw this plastic bag on the table. i was happy! cuz i thought it was food! but when i looked again cuz vision's still blur, i was damn sad cuz it's this empty plastic bag you put on the table for the nurse to throw all my blood-filled gauze inside (again, arisya's blog entry enlightened me abt the plastic bag). ARGH. NO FOOD.

i entered the threatre at 2. i woke up slighly after 3. damn fast hoh. but i was only discharged at 5. so for that 1.5h+ i was just lying down, sitting up when i wanted to drink water, or when the nurse wanted to change my gauze. she said my bleeding was quite good, not too much. yay. it was quite frustrating when i cannot focus my vision on first look at everything. and they still had my needle in my hand! argh. needed to pee but scared to look at myself in the mirror. haha. my head was still heavy so i just lay there n closed my eyes. when i just woke up they wheeled the indian army officer past my bed and he smiled. quite nice fella

this dude after me extractd 6 teeth! pretty extreme. and this fair indian (stuck up face) big size girl came out after him and she was coughing REAL bad like she was gonna die. i could hear the anaesthetist and nurses ard her using this device to suck out liquid from the mouth and telling her "relax. relax. just cough it out, cough it out" scary sia to hear the whole panic moment of hers.

cuz i needed to pee, they let me change at the same time. so while past e army officer's bed and he was just lying there waiting to be discharged. i HUR HUR HUR HUR at him in that irritating tone and walked past. hahaha. nth better to do ah.

the pharmacist gave me a bag of medications before i left my bed, and the nurse attending to me said i can eat porridge, yoghurt, mash potato, sweet liquids and ICE CREAM. woohoo icecream! fantastic. the coldness will help with the discomfort of the swelling.

so mama came after i changed (superb timing) and she bought me jollibean soyadrink. then on e way back i decided i wanted to eat some mashpotato from 7-11 so mom alighted me near 7-11 before she headed back to sch for mid-autumn celebrations. she's so busy yet she squeeze out time for me. much appreciated! so i bought my mashpotato. waste time at pukka cuz marlene's working and they said i only can eat my mash potato at room temp so i waited lor. showed her my teeth and she was SO disgusted HAHAHAAHHHA.

before i ate, i removed the gauze n tried to rinse my mouth very very slightly to clear the blood. omg. BAD MOVE. hurt the bottom wounds (esp the left) damn a lot. so the next few days my worst fear would be to rinse my mouth :(((((

after awhile it was ok. so i ate my mashpotato, bought a cup of ice cream and ate a bit home. i buy cuz i cannot put mix in and i get discounted price of 2bucks! marlene bastard sia, ask me if i wanted almonds in my ice cream. purposely only! hahaha. and also cuz the ice cream is a need now so paying a bit makes me feel good too ahahah. summore her scoop for me was so huge i can store in my freezer and eat bit by bit a few times! it was damn shiok when i ate e icecream. e coldness is so relieving!

head still a bit giddy like after i reach home from clubbing. bathed. wanted to dry my hair by using a bit of com. but giddy ah so i wenta sleep.


want to thank God, mom, keith, arisya, yinren, marlene for all the help offered. very touched to have such help when i feel like i suck at keeping good friends. haha. and all the friends who wished me too, thank you! appreciate it. (: