Jose's Wisdom Teeth removal

This past week Jose took his turn to get his wisdom teeth pulled. Our experiences couldn’t be more different! When I awoke from the anesthesia, all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. I was compliant and calm. Jose on the other hand, greeted me with a funny smile and a thumbs up when I walked in to the operating room.



Apparently he asked the nurse for a piece of paper to write the question “Did I say anything dumb?” but instead only wrote scribbles. He then attempted to tell the nurse that he didn’t need a wheelchair. They forced him to be pushed out in a wheelchair, because even though he thought he was fine, he was wobbly and unsteady! I couldn’t stop giggling when I saw him! Part of it is I giggle when I’m nervous, but the other part was he was so funny!

We drove off to get his medications, and he attempted to talk to me the whole way. I felt bad laughing at him, but I couldn’t help it! His mouth was stuffed with gauze so everything sounded like he was saying “Waa wa, waaa wa, wa wa.” I dropped him off at my parent’s house so I could go get the prescriptions. Once there he insisted he needed to drink water. His mouth was very numb and stuffed with bloody gauze, so the majority of the water (if not all) proceeded to come out of his forced open mouth. His shirt was soaked, water (bloody water) was on the floor, and then he coughed and sprayed water everywhere. You would think he would learn the first time, but he tried it again in the bathroom. I had just finished wiping up the living room water mishap, and now I was doing the same in the bathroom! (And I left out the kitchen sink incident too!). I don’t do to well with blood, so this was a challenge.

The funniest thing is he thought he was completely lucid and capable, but he was bumping into everything. As I was walking out the door he begin making weird burping noises, so we gave him a trashcan (in case he puked) and left him to sleep.

When we returned, his burping noises had not stopped! Turns out they were hiccups, and would stay with him for FIVE days! I don’t know about you, but I hate the hiccups even if they last for 5 minutes. Imagine four days of incessant hiccups! Poor Jose got the ab workout of his life, and also a raw throat and very swollen face (from clenching down).
On top of that he couldn’t sleep for days (except for short times when the Vicodin overcame him), and I couldn’t sleep either because he shook the bed with each hiccup. We tried every remedy we could think of. Even his family tried helping. His grandpa came over and out of nowhere tried scaring Jose (I was the only one who jumped), and his sister called asking Jose about a made up conversation she said they had in attempt to distract him. It only made him think he was crazy for not remembering, and did nothing to help the hiccups.

One night when we couldn’t take it anymore, I searched the internet and found that hiccups are a rare post operative, an effect of inflammation in his throat. His doctor didn’t care, and said to wait until they go away. Finally yesterday, five days after surgery, the hiccups went away.