In the U.S., it’s pretty normal to have your wisdom teeth removed when you’re a teenager or in your early 20s. The logic the dentist tells you (and has you believe is true…) is that your mouth will be overcrowded, that the wisdom teeth growing in later will start pushing up against all your other teeth, and thus they will ruin any orthodontic work (read: braces) that your parents (and their dental insurance) so heavily invested money in. They tell you that wisdom teeth serve no purpose other than to be a nuisance, so they must be removed! However, it seems like wisdom teeth removal is likely a reason why our mouths have gotten smaller over time, which have led to issues such as teeth grinding (bruxism), breathing problems, and a plethora of other issues that only the modern human seems to have experience with.

Chris never had orthodontic work, nor did he have his wisdom teeth removed as a young adult. But alas, this past week, he’s been having a lot of pain back there, so he went to a dental specialist yesterday to get this checked out. He ultimately made the decision to have all four of them removed. Let’s be clear here: removing adult teeth or wisdom teeth is no small feat. It’s not like when you’re a kid, and you’re pulling out a teeny tiny baby tooth with zero roots. Adult tooth roots, and especially wisdom teeth roots, GO DEEP. It’s a surgery, not a simple extraction. They are large, deep, and leave huge holes in your mouth. Those holes can trap food, and they need to be flushed out.

So when Chris came back with four holes in his mouth, plus a little post-surgery care kit, Kaia immediately noticed something was wrong with Daddy. “Daddy, what happen to your mouth?” Kaia said. “Are you hurt? You can’t talk?”

Chris’s mouth was stuffed with gauze getting soaked with blood gradually. He was coming off of numbing medication, and he was very understandably lethargic and slow moving. After procedures like this, it makes sense to have soft or liquid foods, so I suggested he have some oat porridge. I made some, but he said it was too “grainy,” so he had one bowl, and I left the other bowl for myself today. Then, he suggested that I could get him some “thick” soup at Whole Foods. I ended up going to the hot bar and picking up a large container of wild seafood chowder. Unfortunately, he was so uncomfortable eating the solid food pieces that he ended up picking out almost all the salmon and potatoes. Today, he seems a bit better. I made some vegan white bean soup and pureed it for him. But he’s getting cabin fever given he hasn’t been able to go anywhere. Plus, outside of soup, soup, oats, tea, and yogurt with jam, he hasn’t really had much else to eat.

These are the times you really realize how important food is to you (okay, well, us). It’s not only a source of sustenance, but it’s also a source of joy given how lucky we are to have such a vast variety of food available to us. We had ordered Filipino food from a nearby spot on Friday, yet he’s not going to be able to eat any of it given the texture, so Pookster and I will have to eat the rest. Adult wisdom teeth surgery stinks, even if it is necessary.