TOR:
I can't talk properly or eat solid food for a week because I just had my wisdom tooth operation yesterday. I had 3 teeth out in shards after an arduous surigical operation. For the record-- it was very painful. It felt like parts of my skull and cheekbone were being carved away and wrenched out of my head, which is in effect what happened. I could feel the dentist drilling deep into my jaw. I'm afraid I screamed several times. Some kindly nurses popped in after to calm my blubbering self down. It was all very embarrassing. My mother said it sounded like they were sa-ing zhu in there, i.e. killing pig. I couldn't feel my gums and flesh, but I could feel, in my nerves, the bones in my face being sawn apart.
I heard the dentist ask for bigger pliers twice while violently chiseling into my lower right tooth, shattering it into easy-to-wrench bits. Because my teeth were so close to my nerves, I could feel the drill bit every inch of the way. And there was nothing anyone could do about the pain, since it is not possible to numb the whole damn nerve. This is not a kua-zhang-ated account. I'm already 24-- hard bones; more drilling.
Of course you'd expect me to be on a soft mushy diet of congee, congee and more congee. But in fact I've been able to get away with having more tasty, yet still liquidy stuff without having to resort to rice porridge. Initially, I thought I would be able to lose weight by not eating much during my week of recovery, but this doesn't seem so likely now. With a bit of imagination, it's amazing what yummy (fattening) foods you can think of which do not require chewing.
Vic's recommended diet for the wisdom-toothless convalescent(mastication unnecessary):
Day 1-- post-op
Dinner: Milo cereal drink +mango apple juice for vitamins
Supper: Low-fat hot chocolate drink
Day 2
Breakfast: Orange juice + horlicks energy drink
Lunch: Mashed banana + Birds' nest soup
Dinner: Sharks' fin soup (fake-- from J8 downstairs stall) + bak jio (spicy pork paste-- like mashed up bak ting)
Day 3
Breakfast: Apple pureé + marigold yoghurt drink-- passionfruit and pear flavour
Lunch: Dao huay (beancurd dessert) from Jollibean + orange juice
Dinner: Oyster mee sua from taiwanese chicken shop. (without oyster)
Day 4
Breakfast: Kopi + soft boiled egg from Ya Kun
Lunch: Brekkie To Go smoothie from Boost! (banana, vanilla low fat frozen yoghurt, muesli, milk, honey, ice + I will ask for a spoonful of chocolate)
Dinner: mashed potato + chicken gravy (ready-made from NTUC) + Tow Kae Noi seaweed (melts in mouth)
Day 5
Breakfast: Milk + Khong Guan egg rolls softened in milk
Lunch: Barley drink with dao huay from Ya Kun
Dinner: extremely cooked vegetable stew (easily mashable cauliflower, potato and carrot)
Even a wisdom tooth operation that's left me with chipmunk cheeks, holes in my gums and painful stitches that click when I laugh hasn't dampened my appetite. But I'm not hungrier than I usually am since my present diet is not actually that far off from what I would eat normally anyway. I am so not going to lose any weight lor.
My only gripe with my ravaged gums is that the ache goes right down to the holes in my jaw and cheek bones and it hurts when I laugh, smile, sneeze, cough, yawn or talk like a normal person. I can only speak in a wierd, sleazy, muffled way, through clenched teeth, without really moving my mouth. That's actually worse than my inability to eat solid food, since I've demonstrated that there's a good variety of tasty non-solid foods available in our fair country. It's times like this that I give thanks for the virtues of our bounteous island-state. Can you imagine being in angmoh-land with holes in your gums? You'd be stuck with going to chinatown for pei-dan chok, pei-dan chok and more pei-dan chok!*
*Ok, ok, I jest. I'm sure there's lots of ang-moh food for convalescents, e.g. angmoh soups, porridge, cauliflower pureé, mushy peas, Heinz baby food...
