When I was a kid, I resolved to go my entire life without ever having a surgery. Though the goal never made it to my paper bucket list—can you put things you don’t do on a bucket list?—I was convinced, indubitably, that surgery is one of those scary things that only happens to other people and would never affect me. As if the need for surgery only befalls those who are not scared of it. (Do those people even exist?)
Last summer, my dentist crushed those hopes into puny knife-shaped pieces when she pointed to my x-ray and reported my fate. Not enough room for your wisdom teeth, she stated. The bottom ones are angled inward; they’ve already started wearing at your other teeth. Best to get the top ones out too; it’ll be a much harder recovery to get them out when you’re older if they end up shifting.
This report came a couple weeks before I hopped on a plane to Japan for a year. I can’t say the threat of surgery is why I left the country, but I must confess there was no disappointment in shirking all thoughts of knives and extractions for twelve months until I was back on my home insurance plan. But alas, time flies when you’re having fun and here I found myself, back at the dentist, sitting in front of the same old x-ray with the same old fate. I still had to get my wisdom teeth removed.
I successfully continued my avoidance strategy when we encountered difficulties scheduling the operation. I did not dedicate a single thought to that fast-approaching horrid thing—I could not see it on the calendar, thus it was not real. Then, in mid-October, the dentist finally called back and the date was set for one week later.
In defense of my unsuccessful avoidance strategies, allow me to share some of the stories about doctors that have haunted me since time immemorial, but especially that week before the surgery. My wonderful mother has the most fantastic narrative timing of anyone I know: In the minutes before I had my blood drawn for the first time, she held my hand and joked about the time she ended up with a giant bruise because the nurse couldn’t find her vein and decided to start digging around with the needle. When my own nurse’s syringe malfunctioned and spilled my blood somehow, my mother was kind enough to note for me (who was pointedly not looking), “Oh, that’s a lot of blood.” I nearly passed out.
At the dentist’s when my mother and I were scrutinizing my wisdom tooth x-rays, she revived the familiar tale of when she had her own wisdom teeth removed and she reacted so violently to the laughing gas that she spent the entire week vomiting, dissolved her non-dissolvable sutures, and then had to go back for a second smaller surgery to get the embedded remainders removed. She also told me she no longer has feeling on one side of her lower jaw because of some mistake she received from a med student at the same university where I would be having my operation. My older sibling who had an identical operation ten months ago still complains of unhealed gum sockets and voices loud regrets of having the operation done at all.
Then there are the dentists themselves. I sat with my hands folded in my lap as my med-student dentist listed off all the potential side effects and risks associated with the operation, as is customary. At night, I pulled my sheets up to my chin thinking about irreparable jaw nerves and holes in my sinuses.
I had only a week to actually dread it, so the day of the operation came quickly. Too terrified of general anesthesia, I opted for local numbing and downed a diazepam the morning of, which made me into a chill, tipsy patient wobbling into the operation chair. The best thing my mother told me the day before was to think of it not as a surgery but like any other dental work—I had teeth filled and pulled as a child—and so I did. And it was just another procedure. I wore my sunglasses and kept my eyes closed the whole time, not wanting to spy any gigantic needles or scissors. I kept myself impressively still, even as my legs quivered like leaves, as the pair of med students bantered easily with each other over my prone form, giving the impression the procedure was simple and seamless. In forty-five minutes, I was all stitched up, stuffed with cotton, and handed a goody bag of extra gauze and post-op instructions. Still high on the anxiety meds and the fact that the procedure was behind me, I rolled into the passenger seat and typed to my mom (since my face was numb), “That wasn’t so bad.”
It wasn’t. But recovery’s the hard part. That’s where the Motrin came in, and swelling and bruising that made me resemble a chipmunk for the next five days. But after a week of couch-dwelling and missing several events I naively thought I’d be well enough for, the worst of it came to pass. I had surgery and I didn’t kick the bucket. And my irrational bucket list item is now that I’ve paid my surgery dues and will go my entire life without ever having another one.
Emilyn Shortridge (’25) spent her Calvin years studying English linguistics, Asian studies, and ministry leadership, and intends to finish her Asian studies program in Chiba, Japan, in 2026. When at home in Plymouth, Michigan, she thrives anywhere near fantasy novels, houseplants, hot tea, or her calico cat, Genie, but she plans to live and learn in many cultures before deciding which corner of the world needs her most.
