25 Thoughts I Had the Night Before My Wisdom Teeth Removal Procedure

You would think that for someone who has so much to smile about and laughs as often as I do, that I would love to flash my pearly whites. You thought wrong.

I hate smiling. Not because I don't enjoy smiling, but because I hate my smile and I've hated it for years. If we've never met or you've never looked closely at a photo of me, you've probably never noticed that I have an impacted canine; or what I like to call- my snaggle tooth.  My baby canine never came out and the adult tooth just sort of grew in on top of it. It's embarrassing.

You might be asking why I never got it fixed when I was younger; easy, I never really had access to affordable dental care and for most of my adult life, the canine tooth and my wisdom teeth were never really an issue...until now.

After seeing how happy my boyfriend Jason was when he got his teeth fixed, it made me want to take the next step and do the same for myself. Like me, he hated being in pictures and when we took pictures together, he never smiled. Now, he's the one with the cheesy grin and I'm always trying to hide my face. I'm done with that.

To get my teeth the way I want, I need to get braces; before I get braces, I have to get my wisdom teeth removed. They've never really caused me any pain or anything but one recently erupted and it's become troublesome. The other three are impacted and one can't even be removed because it's too close to the nerves in my jaw.

So here I sit, the night before my wisdom teeth removal and I am terrified to say the least; and nothing has been able to stop my endless Google searches for all that could go wrong. I guess you could say I have a tendency to be a bit overly dramatic but this is new to me and I have no idea what to expect; that's what the internet is for; and let me tell you, it didn't help.

Here are just some of the thoughts that have been running through my head since the day I scheduled my surgery:

1. I am going to die.
2. What if I don't wake up?
3. Quickly Googles, "what to expect during wisdom teeth removal surgery."
4. OMG, a 17-year-old girl died during a routine wisdom teeth removal procedure?
5. Don't click on it....don't.click.on.it.
6. You should not have clicked on that.
7. Wait, what is hypoxia? Can I get hypoxia.
8. Don't Google "hypoxia?"
9. Maybe you should cancel this procedure.
10. Who needs straight teeth anyway?
11. My snaggle tooth gives me character, let's just keep it.
12. Remember that one time when a little kid asked you why you had extra tooth up there? You don't want to have to explain that one again.
13. I'm a vampire; yeah, that's it, a vampire.
14. I wonder what people have to say about my doctor, let's check out his reviews.
15. I bet the first thing I say in recovery, if I wake up and don't die, is "I'm hungry."
16. You can do this.
17. No, you definitely can not do this.
18. What if I have a panic attack when they put the IV in my arm?
19. Thank god for Xanax.
20. Wait, you don't even know what taking Xanax is like.
21. Good thing I get to take some the night before to make sure it doesn't make me feel all anxious and weird.
22. I hope I feel better in time for my cruise.
23. Wonder what my recovery video will be like?
24. Oh god, don't let Jason record your recovery.
25. You'll be so out of it you probably won't even know or care.

And to sum it all up, because I could go on, that's exactly what I hope goes through my mind tomorrow- number 25. People do this everyday. I'll take a couple Xanax, have Jason escort me to that departure door and send me off with a kiss; have a conversation with my doctor about how anxious I am; he'll reassure me that it will be fine and before you know it, it will be over.

That's how this works, right?