odds and ends: more oral surgery, halloween

If you follow me on the various social networks I take part in you know this already but… I had my final two wisdom teeth removed this pat Tuesday. I’ve been putting this off for (no kidding I’m ashamed to say) YEARS now so when I was up all night Saturday racked with pain, I had no one but myself to blame. Ideally, having a procedure like this done would be something a teacher would try and schedule for a spring break or a summer vacation. I was betting I’d be able to make it to our school’s winter break and I lost.

It seems small potatoes when compared to what my many teacher friends in New York and New Jersey are contending with right now but I hate missing a big chunk of school like this. One day here or there is fine, but anything more than that and it’s bad news all around. Bad for students… bad for the school… and bad for me. I’ve been feeling nothing but down in the dumps about this since Monday afternoon when I realized I’d be out for at least a day, probably two.

The procedure went without a hitch but I spent much of Wednesday in a gross amount of pain. Seriously, you wouldn’t BELIEVE what my pillow looked like when I woke up from my post-operation nap; it was like something out of one of those torture porn movies. Since then, I’ve been getting by on a steady diet of painkillers and soft foods. Tonight I successfully chowed down on boxed macaroni and cheese and considered it a success.

The funny thing is, this same thing happened to me around this time last year and I did a week-long series of comics about that experience, which you can read if you click here. The only difference between last year and this year is I smartened up enough to take time off from work. Last year, I went into school and tried to “be a hero” as it were. My reward was a surprise walk-though inspection from the assistant principal; he was disappointed I was sitting at my desk, less active than a teacher should be during a sustained silent reading period. I had forgotten all about that incident until this morning but it made me GLAD I took today off. The last thing I needed is to be judged on my teaching today by someone who wouldn’t take the “whole picture” into consideration.

I go back tomorrow. Half of my mouth will be wadded up with cotton. I have a low impact agenda for tomorrow, including administering a “common assessment” for the 9th grade students and a lesson I hope to pull together for my 12th grade class by waking up early tomorrow and hitting the 24 hour Meijer for supplies.

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Although I was in pain, I would have disappointed my boys greatly if I hadn’t sucked it up and squeezed into my Halloween costume this year.

…besides, it wouldn’t have been very “Batman” of me to wuss out, right? Rest assured, the costume was peeled off and I was back on the couch recuperating about two minutes after this snapshot was taken.