I always thought wisdom teeth made you wiser but then Google told me that only Google can make me wiser so I had my wisdom teeth pulled. Not really. The real story goes, my Melbourne dentist was keeping an eye on my wise ways and when I moved to Brisbane, somewhere between dentists, my status was upgraded to, "Oh... I think you should see a specialist. Soonish." To "can you do surgery next week?" to SpongeBob SquareFace.

I don't remember much from the experience on account of they put me under for two tricksome teeth of the four removed. An impacted molar and random secondary premolar stuck in the middle of my face that never bothered to show. When I woke up, I had some nice broken blood vessels on my left eye, nose bleed, nausea and I dry-retched like a pro (nothing came up). The nice nurses told me not to worry, there's always one troublemaker. Everyone else in recovery cruised back into soberdom. Dang.

Dr. Matthew Hawthorne, who I highly recommend as a specialist - so knowledgeable, friendly and skilled - came to tell me how the procedure went but in my daze I didn't listen hard enough. All I could think was, 'Does he pat all his patients on the head like that or do I remind him of his daughters? Does he even have daughters? Maybe he's patting me like he would his dog.' By the time that train of thought ended, the doc had left my bedside to visit my neighbour but I vaguely recalled something about us being vindicated and making the right decision to remove all teeth because the jerk molar and premolar had done damage to my healthy teeth. Also, they proved trickier than anticipated so it had taken him longer to get them out.

That last part was a warning I didn't yet understand that the left side of my face was about to balloon to triple the size of my swollen right side. He'd numbed it up so much I didn't feel it for a good 20 hours but when it kicked - oh my gah! did it hurt. And 5 days later it's still a pain. The swelling's starting to go down so I can finally see my stitches and the slice is 2-3 times larger than the slice on my right cheek. Oh, stubborn molar, I can't stay mad at you - you're just bullheaded like your mum.

I've been taking panadeine forte which I now regret. Well, I'm glad I took it the first two days but wish I'd dropped back to panamax for the last couple because when I got out of bed for work this morning I felt dizzy, wanted to sick up and flopped back down with a horrible headache. Ween yourself off the painkillers a couple days before you hope to have brain function.

While I'm giving out advice: People, if you have the option and the means, get those wisdom teeth out early. Don't wait for them to grow into nasty, little buggers like mine. My right side, and top left, which were perfectly fine (by that I mean growing outwards into my cheeks) never really hurt that much after surgery. Right now, I can prod my right cheek quite firmly before it hurts, but my left side with the impacted molar would like me to eff the eff off and leave it the eff alone for another effing week. Maybe two.