elwen | More dentistry. (Reply)

Went back to the dentist to get the tube removed. That was probably even weirder than anything until now. I mean, I could feel a good section of the tube in my mouth. It was right next to one of my molars, and a bit higher than the crown. So he had me open my mouth, reached in with some scissors, cut something, and then pulled it out. And it just slipped out like I could have done it myself, with no pain at all. It was long, and the end was bloody, so a good length of it must have been embedded in my cheek, I guess. Maybe there were stiches holding it in place and that's what he snipped. I can't really feel a hole there, although there's kind of a swollen lump of flesh with a fold on the other side, and maybe that's where the hole is. The tube always felt kind of pinched shut, so I'm guessing it wouldn't be a gaping thing anyway. And I was spitting a bit of blood earlier.

So now the swelling's supposed to go down, and I'll get all better. Only, the hard lump thing doesn't seem to have changed at all in the past few days. Maybe it's sticking out less, as if swelling behind it had been puffing it outwards, but the lump itself is the same as ever, with the little cleft in the middle. The doctor didn't really say anything about it, so for now I'll assume that it'll take my body a bit longer to absorb something so dense. But the tube didn't really drain anything, so I wonder. When he took it out and was rinsing afterwards, he kind of squeezed along my cheek, like you do when you try to get pus out of a pimple. But that didn't seem to help either.

He did seem a bit nonplussed at the fact that I still couldn't open my mouth much, but again didn't follow up. This sounds dangerously like my previous policy of "wait and see if it gets better before saying anything", but I suppose I'll wait until Tuesday to bring it up. I mean, if the doctor is applying that policy, I can hardly argue, right?

Non-gross summary: I'm getting better, I think. The dentist seemed somewhat taken aback that I still can't open my mouth much, but didn't say anything about it, so I guess we're waiting until I go in again on Tuesday to see what happens.