Wisdom Lost or Gained

Dear Reader,

This has been a bit of an odd week. I had my wisdom teeth removed, which is probably one of those normal things that you don’t think that ranchers deal with. Well, unfortunately we do. They were easy to take out (I am assuming so because I slept pretty much the whole time), and my recovery is going great. But it was odd being on the receiving end of vet work. Let me explain. When your whole livelihood for your whole life has revolved around taking care of animals, you are pretty familiar with needles, doses, withdrawal dates, and wound care, but it feels very different when all of this is going on inside YOUR mouth.

It all started pretty innocently when one of my wisdom teeth would not stop hurting. So I went to my dentist who promptly said, “They’re going to have to come out.” And a week later I found myself sitting in the oral surgeon’s chair getting a needle stuck in my vein that was the same size that we use on horses (22 gauge if anyone was wondering). Now going into this, I was a little nervous, probably like most people are because the thought of getting teeth ripped out of your mouth is not pleasant, but I was also curious to how this related to equine dentistry.

Growing up, it was a big day when we had the vet come out to take care of the horses’ teeth. We usually had a few friends bring their horses too, so that the vet could do more at one stop. It was a little bit like a party when I think about it now. My sisters and I would make sure the horses that we needed were caught and ready for the vet. Sometimes we would hold the horses while the vet gave shots to sedate the horses, and then we would watch from behind as he propped the horse’s mouth open. For annual dental visits this just meant having the horses’ teeth filed down so that they wore evenly, but for the young horses this usually meant the removal of wolf teeth. (Wolf teeth are a pair of teeth in the horses’ mouth that are right where the bit sits in the mouth, so they are usually removed so the bit does not irritate them.) After the horses’ teeth were done, it was us kids’ job to walk the horses away and watch them while the drugs wore off. I don’t know how many times I was told, “Be careful that he doesn’t fall on you.” In college I interned at a vet’s office where every Friday was dental day, and I became very familiar with being the dental assistant. So see, I wasn’t too unfamiliar when it was my time to be the dental patient.

I am very proud to say that I did not kick or bite the dentist, and I was very still when they had to put the IV in. I didn’t fall on anyone when I was escorted out, but I was very sore. Having all four wisdom teeth removed is something I would never want to have to do without modern medicine. The hardest thing for me mentally to deal with after having my teeth removed was actually having a wound in my mouth with stitches.  I knew what animal wounds looked like that I had taken care of and what can go wrong. So, I may have been a little paranoid when my mouth kept tasting funny, and the stitches started coming out. I have had to take the same dog twice in one week to get stitches, so needless to say I was very careful not to accidentally take one out.

As you may have noticed, I relate a lot of things that I experience to what I have experienced with animals. I would hazard to say that this is a common thing with ranch kids. As you grow older you relate things to what you already know, and a ranch kid happens to have a lot of experience in animal husbandry. Often when we were younger and were trying to explain how we felt, we would say, “just like when the horses do this” or “like when the dogs get upset about that.” It can be a bit of a language barrier when no one understands your ranch comparisons (and also when you do not get most pop culture references).

So, what did I learn from this experience? Well, don’t push yourself and give your body time to rest. Just because you feel like you can do it now doesn’t mean you won’t be hurting in an hour. (Shout out to my parents for not letting me go to work the next day!) If your mouth hurts after you have four teeth taken out, your horse’s mouth probably will too. And most importantly, no matter how bad your mouth hurts because you forgot to take your medicine before you left to work, do not take the steroids at 4 in the afternoon (it doesn’t wear off until about 1 in the morning)!