Weird Bad Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So, I FINALLY got my (impacted) wisdom teeth out yesterday. I had the surgeon do it with local anaesthetic instead of getting put under, because 1.) I'm thrifty! Or two paychecks shy of broke and stuck with crappy dental insurance, whichever way you wanna put it, and 2.) I'm just that hardcore (as in, I pushed a 7 lb 3 oz person out of my vagina with no pain medication, people! I can sit perfectly still and let a dentist cut my gums open, bash my teeth to bits inside my jaw with a hammer and drill and then rip out broken the pieces with pincers while I am still fully conscious without totally wigging out. Really. Seriously. I know I can. I hope. Can you hold my hand now?).

The procedure wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I have a terrible, irrational fear of needles, but for some reason they don't scare me nearly as much if I can't see them going in, so I just closed my eyes while they injected my gums, cheeks, throat, etc. like 20 times. And the local anaesthetic really did do it's job. I felt an incredible amount of pressure while they were removing my teeth, and weird cracking sensations that might have sent pre-natural-childbirth-kind-of-hardcore me into a bit of a tizzy, but I didn't freak out and start flailing around and trying to hit people like I was secretly scared I would.

Anyway, now I'm on Vicodin, or rather, generic hydrocodone actually, because my insurance company is too cheap to pay for brand name pharmaceuticals (though that's one kind of cheapness on their end I'm actually cool with). In case you don't know what Vicodin* is, it's a narcotic-plus-Tylenol combo that is known to kill pain quite efficiently while also making you loopy and sorta high. It's one of those addictive-over-time prescription pain killers that people bribe and cheat their doctors into getting them extra refills for.

I guess now I know I'll never be an successful smack fiend, because just like its narcotic cousin codeine, which I had quite a rocky first date with a couple of years ago after minor abdominal surgery that left me worshipping the porcelain gods for hours and then dry heaving for three days straight, this Vicodin is making me almost constantly nauseous (though this is a much milder reaction than I had to the codeine-- i.e., I still can eat stuff. Soft, cold stuff that doesn't have to be chewed, anyway).

It is also TOTALLY not getting me high. Loopy, yes. Frequently I can't remember what I've said ten minutes ago, and I have lost all sense of the passage of time. My brain doesn't seem to want to hold focus on anything. Which I suppose is a good thing when you have gaping holes in your mouth. If I were focusing on that fact all day long it would probably disturb me, come to think of it.

But all in all, I have to say this Vicodin is not all the street dealers hype it up to be. I can't imagine using this stuff on a daily basis without also consuming at least 15 cups of black coffee just to keep my mind focused enough to have coherent conversations with people. I think tomorrow I will be switching back to my trusty old Advil bottle, thank you very much.

And no, you can't buy my leftover Vicodin from me :P

*In case any nursing mamas are wondering, Vicodin is rated "probably safe for nursing" on Kellymom.com