For years and years the dentist has been telling me I will need one of my wisdom teeth out. Thing is I have a needle phobia and so quickly simply letting him come at me with a needle in my mouth was never going to happen! Which is how yesterday was finally the date to have a Wisdom Teeth Extraction under General Anaesthetic.
The Journey To Having A Wisdom Teeth Extraction under General Anaesthetic
The amount of years that have gone by I have lost count since this first interaction. It has definitely been a long time because I had a new dentist before the pandemic since! Since she agreed to refer me to the hospital there’s been a lot of backwards and forwards there too. My previous post Wisdom tooth removal with a needle phobia explains more but basically although it was my choice I was made to feel my needs were unimportant. That I was just wasting NHS time and money.
Agreeing to the Wisdom Teeth Extraction
Eventually we got to the point where I agreed. Sometimes I got a little bit of pain and I reasoned they wouldn’t be just telling me to have it out for no reason. Plus my friend who has a fear of dentists said to just get them out.
Getting an appointment was no easy task. They had told me that if I wanted it at a more local hospital the wait could be a year. At this point it was still a possibility they would sort out my bottom half whilst under general anaesthetic. As I wasn’t in any pain I was happy to wait and let people more in need go ahead of me.
The Appointment Dates
Basically they then kept ringing me with last minute dates and wanting to know an answer there and then. It wasn’t possible to do them because my husband needed to be available to take me and to do the school run. When he wasn’t even with me when I took the call I couldn’t even check if he could take the time off!
They said that was fine that I would get my own appointment through the post. But when it arrived it was for 7:30am. We need to leave for the school run at 7:45am and there’s no way we could drop the children off at school before 7am to get there!
Not Convenient Dates
When I rang to change it though the receptionist was funny about it and wanted to know why. Explaining once again how my husband needed to be with me but had to do the school run. She told me that I am only allowed to be offered two appointments. That I would get an afternoon one through the post but that would be it!
The post came and it was for Halloween in the afternoon. That was fine. My husband booked it off and the boys were back at school. It was 12:30 so worst that would happen is I would have to wait in the hospital for him to collect me.
Changing my Time
But then on the 12th October I received a call to say that they were moving it to 7:30am! Explaining that wasn’t possible, due to the school run and the fact that my husband needed to be with me, she said it would needed to be moved once again. There and then she offered me the 14th November at 12:30. My husband has moved to working in the office to save us money on fuel for the school run so again he just wasn’t here to ask. Not seeing a problem with the date I explained all this to her and that it would be easier for me to accept it.
She was then really funny about it all. Saying that she understood that they had changed the date this time but that I couldn’t KEEP changing it! This whole process I have felt like just hard work, a burden. Plus I wasn’t in any pain!
Luckily my husband could do the 14th November so everything was set to go. Just beforehand I wasn’t well but showed negative on lateral flows. There was none of the main symptoms either and I wasn’t about to cancel.
See also Sarah’s posts: wisdom tooth removal with a local anesthetic and the other about wisdom tooth removal under sedation
Ugh! Such a shame they were funny with the appointments. When my girls had heart check ups at our old house they always used to send 8am appointments which were impossible to get to unless we got up at about 4.30am. It always seemed like an inconvenience to them to change it.
I am glad you got there in the end x