...wise?

This morning I woke up to a pleasant aching at the top right edge of my gums. It actually took me a few minutes to realise that the bumps protruding from my gums were not normal but were in fact the beginnings of a wisdom tooth.

At the end of high school and beginning of college, most of my friends went through the whole wisdom tooth thing. The nervousness, the dreaded surgery, the cotton ball mouth, the days of speaking with a lisp and the days of eating liquid food. Back then, I laughed at their misfortune, wearing my lack of dental development like a badge of honor. NOW, it looks like I might have laughed much too soon. It seems fitting that now that I have a job that I need to communicate coherently for, enjoy eating real food and have really no time to schedule for oral surgery, that I have a wisdom tooth coming in.

Asking the advice from a few of my friends and coworkers, they laughed first...then asked "do you have room for the tooth?" Upon getting asked that question, I always flash to the years of painful orthodontics (getting 4 teeth removed & braces) that I had to go through in order for my teeth to look the way they do. But I answer "no, I don't think so." To which they reply, not with words, but a pained look on their face expressing their silent apology.

I wasn't terribly worried before, but after 3 of those faces, I got increasingly worried. So I wikipedia'ed it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_tooth
According to wiki:
-Wisdom teeth are removed for cleanliness, crowding, alignment, and pain issues. (fun)
-Complication of the oral surgery include:
- bleeding/oozing (I'm a huge wuss when it comes to blood..hence why I'm NOT a doctor)
- dry socket (ew)
- swelling (I'm imagining myself moonlighting as a chipmunk)
- nerve injury (this one I'm actually worried about)

I also found some great pictures of an oral surgery online: eep!