I do not remember much from the hours immediately following the extraction of my wisdom teeth, only that my dentist was rambling on about something called “dry sockets” to my parents. The remainder of that Sunday was spent at my dad’s house, because he worked from home and my mom worked at a preschool. I would end up having to stay there for another three days and while staying away from school for that long was typically a senior’s dream come true, all I could think about was all the work I would have to complete when I got back.
The first of these three days was brutal. I woke up laying in sheets drenched in blood, and an unrelenting headache. It was like all the liquid that poured out of me while I was asleep was still missing from my brain. Because of this, I was convinced that I had fallen victim to the elusive “dry socket” and needed to go to the hospital. As I waddled over to my dad, my head slooshing and sloshing every which way, he just wiped my mouth out with a napkin, changed my sheets for my sister’s, and sent me back to bed. Which I stayed in until dinnertime.
By then, my dad had given me a bowl full of applesauce to eat, but he did not give me a spoon to eat it with. When I asked him nicely to get me one, he declined, saying that it was easier to eat applesauce with a fork anyway. I protested, saying the opposite, even going so far as to offer to get the spoon myself. With this, he caved in and got me the spoon so that I could enjoy my meal.
One of the reasons why I do not like staying with my father is that he is very assertive, and states whatever he wants to get his way, which would later become a theme of my entire stay. The fact that he thinks he can just lie straight to my face shows how little he seems to value our relationship. After the whole argument, I decided to go to bed, as I was too tired and physically exhausted to do anything else.
The second day was a little bit better. There was still blood on my sheets, but not nearly as much. I asked my dad if he could replace my sheets again, but he said that he had no other sets of sheets left. I did not feel hungry, and I still really could not do anything, so I took a nap again until dinnertime. When I woke up this time, my dad had three bowls lying out for me, one with applesauce, another with yogurt and a third with chocolate pudding. He told me to eat it all, and I managed to get through the applesauce and halfway through the yogurt before my jaw started to hurt. In between bites, I would often look around to look at what surrounded me. The first thing I saw was the family dog, Milo. The poor fella’s golden fur coat had mostly turned gray, and his entire body shook as if it was being held up by stilts.
I felt bad for Milo, sure, he always bit me when I tried to pet him, but there was a reason for that. On a trip to Vegas, my family went on a month before my parents divorced, my dad was always trying to seem like the “cooler” parent. In his quest to do so, he thought it would be a good idea to make Milo a “service dog” by finding some random service vest and slapping it on him. At first, when I saw this, I was ecstatic. I had my own service dog. Turns out, Milo hated thunder coats and all things like them. Whenever I tried to pet him, he snapped at me, and that was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. Before the trip, Milo simply wanted nothing to do with me, afterwards, I am pretty sure he wanted to kill me.
When I was eating my applesauce at dinner, I noticed it had a certain crunch to it. I asked Dad about it, and he said the doctor had given him painkillers for me to take after my operation. Shortly after, I went to my room to go to sleep, but I noticed my phone had turned on because of a push notification regarding a text from a friend. I intended to only text her a little bit before I went to bed, which I was doing well at in the beginning, and then the painkillers kicked in. I do not know if this was a common side effect of my medication, but I am decently sure that it toned down my social anxiety a little bit. I was all happy, and my whole face felt fuzzy. I could not stop telling her all these strange anecdotes about my life, it was crazy. Eventually, she asked me if we could watch some web series together and given the mental state I was in, despite me desperately needing sleep for my recovery, I joyfully obliged.
Honest to God, I forgot about most of what happened. I know it was about catgirls, there was some other whippersnapper involved that had blue hair, and the whole thing was lined with loud noises. It was quite literally a fever dream. I think the main character was bitten by a squirrel. I lost track of all time, so by the time I went to bed, it was around 10:30. By the time I woke up the next morning, I felt horrible. My head hurt and I had not drank water for 3 days, the only liquid I had gotten was from applesauce, but even that was not really that much. At least I did not bleed overnight. I made it my mission to drink from my water bottle today, I needed to, I had the absolute worst headache imaginable. As soon as I felt ready, I asked my dad to transfer me to my chair, which he did. When I got to the table, I took one slow, gradual sip. I was terrified of getting a dry socket, as the liquid went down my mouth I was horrified that one of my stitches would suddenly implode, but they did not.
After that, my dad told me to check my Chromebook for any missing assignments I had. I still had a massive headache, as I just figured out how to drink water, but I did it regardless. The blue light from the computer screen felt like it was eviscerating my corneas. Mmm… yummy, yummy blue light. My eyeballs burn. I genuinely could not bring myself to actually work on anything. I had 19 missing assignments and every grade I had marked down was an F. Eventually, I rationalized that I should at least occupy my time with something, the more work I did now, the less I had to do later. So, I decided I would at least do a few things for English. I absolutely did not want to pick up a book, but I had to “silently read” for 25 minutes. Okay, what can I stare at for a little less than half an hour and later write a reflection about that will not completely decimate my occipital lobes?
If I set my phone to minimum brightness, turn on Night Shift, and maximize the Reading View zoom, I might be able to read a couple news updates from the iPhone’s “Stocks” app, and that is exactly what I did. It took me 25 minutes to read two of them. I kept reading the same three lines over and over again. I kept reading the same three lines over and over again. I kept reading the same three lines over and over again. I kept reading the same three lines over and over again. I wrote about what I read, kind of, I did not entirely comprehend what I was reading, halfway through, the text started getting blurry. I just threw in a couple semi-related personal anecdotes, wrote two paragraphs and called it a day. By the end, my entire body was crying and I just went back to sleep.
Dinner was relatively normal, I ate mashed potatoes. By this point, I was so sick of staying with my father that I told him I was ready to go back to school tomorrow. Was I? No. A secret little nugget of knowledge I would like to share is that he kept arguing with me over the most miscellaneous things. It was like staying with my grandparents. I was overjoyed when my mom picked me up.
