The inevitable happened. Zach had to get his wisdom teeth pulled. **Interesting fact: "wisdom teeth" in Korean (사랑니) (sa-rang-nee) means "love teeth".** Over the past year, he has mentioned that his wisdom teeth will have to be removed soon. He wasn't in a lot of pain but felt discomfort at times. Zach isn't much of a complainer, especially when it comes to pain. I blame that on a certain older brother of his...ehm....Ryan. :)
Since we have ten days (17 days with weekends) off for vacation and we aren't going anywhere, we thought this would be the perfect time to get them pulled. Zach asked his co-teacher to make an appointment for him since he already tried calling and the receptionist wasn't understanding that he needed his teeth pulled. She kept saying something about a cleaning. His co-teacher made the appointment for Feb. 14. Yes, Valentine's Day. The dentist spoke pretty decent English and said that he could pull two of them but that the bottom two would have to be done at a hospital. Zach chose to just have them all pulled at the hospital so that they could all be pulled at the same time. The dentist even gave us the name and phone number of a hospital that could do it. He called and the receptionist couldn't understand him.
Luckily I saved the phone number of one of the ladies who worked on my chipped tooth a few months ago. (She texted me after I left the hospital to make sure everything was fine with my tooth. Talk about customer service!) I texted her and got a response immediately. Zach had an appointment at the hospital the very next day, Friday. They took x-rays and a CT scan of his mouth. They then cleaned his teeth. They agreed with the previous dentist that the two lower teeth would be harder to extract so they made an appointment for Zach to return the following Monday to have his lower, left, wisdom tooth removed. From what I'm hearing from others, it is uncommon and almost unheard of to have all teeth removed at the same time.
We went back to the hospital Monday to get his tooth removed. He was in there for about 1 hour. They didn't knock him out; they gave him a local anesthetic. Zach said that during the middle of the procedure, he raised his left hand like he was told to indicate pain, and the doctor said that he couldn't give him more medicine. Zach felt almost everything that was happening and was in severe pain. When he was finished, the nurse told him to return the following day without an appointment so they could have a quick look to make sure everything was ok. Before he could leave, they made him go up to the patient rooms floor to get injections. They gave him a TB test, two shots in the hip and an injection in the arm. Fifteen minutes after the TB test, he was injected again. Zach and I are both 99% sure that none of the shots contained pain medicine.
The only positive thing about this whole situation is the cost. The first dentist charged 6,000 Won (~ $6.00 USD) for a consultation and x-rays. The hospital charged 50,000 Won (~ $50.00 USD) for the consultation, x-rays, CT scan, and cleaning. On the day of extraction, the hospital charged 25,000 Won (~ $25.00 USD) for pulling the tooth and injections. The pharmacy bill was 3,000 Won (~ $3.00 USD).
Though he is not excited about it, Zach will have his second tooth removed this coming Monday evening. They are also going to remove his stitches from the first tooth. I hope this one is a lot smoother than the last one and that he doesn't feel as much pain. Wish him luck!!!
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