An Emergency Trip To The Dentist And The New York Jets
I've had a hellish 24 hours but I'm ready for more suffering with the J-E-T-S on SNF...
Allow me to bring you inside my last 24 hours or so.
Spoiler Alert; it ain’t pretty.
It all started on Saturday. I had some errands to run, a busy day of work ahead and some fun personal plans. The usual. Anyway, about midway through the day, I started to notice a weird feeling in my left cheek / jaw area. Nothing major and more of a minor annoyance.
However, fast forward to the early hours of this morning when I woke up feeling like someone had taken an electric power drill to the inside of my mouth. No, scrap that. It felt more like an industrial jackhammer going to town on my left bottom jaw, ripping a hole through my gum and my cheek.
And I’m not kidding, either. When trying to inspect my own mouth in the mirror first thing this morning, there was literally a gaping hole and a huge piece of skin / cheek / gum flapping around like it owned the place.
It looked like something out of Alien Vs. Predator. Or a miniature version of Freddy Krueger had been let loose in my mouth and was left to slice the crap out of my mouth like Picasso going to work and doing his thing on a blank canvas.
Anyway, after screaming every expletive under the sun and shedding literal tears every time I tried to swallow - hey, nothing, and I mean nothing gets in the way of me and my morning coffee, not even a hole in the mouth - I managed to book an emergency appointment with the dentist.
Man, that was nearly as painful as the horror / freak show going on inside my mouth. I hate the dentist. I mean, I really, really, really hate the dentist and the sense of dread that consumes every fibre of my body just thinking about taking the long walk to that dreaded dentist chair almost made me forget about the actual agony I was going through.
Almost.
After having a picture frame - yes, I know that isn’t the scientific term but leave me alone, I’m in pain - shoved deep inside my left cheek, the sharp edges doing nothing to make the already sliced and diced area feel any better, the cause of my near-death experience was revealed.
Pericoronitis.
What the hell is that you ask? And, yes, it does sound more like a species of dinosaur.
But, no, Pericoronitis is effectively when a wisdom tooth becomes infected and inflamed.
In my case, my wisdom tooth on the left side of my mouth had only partly come through, cutting up through my gum at a funny angle, ripping through my cheek and heavily impacting my jaw in the process.
Talk about hitting the trifecta of wisdom tooth-induced torture.
After getting the all-clear that everything else was okay structurally, although I wouldn’t have cared at that point if every single tooth had fallen out given the hellscape I was already mired in, I was prescribed some meds and proceeded to feel sorry for myself.
Although, I will admit that being hauled back in the dreaded dentist chair wasn’t all that bad, and the two lovely ladies who attended to the crisis going on in my god-forsaken mouth made the whole experience that much more bearable.
Despite the fact that I’ve popped more pills in the last few hours than Michael Jackson did in his final years, I’m writing this in immense pain still. The only way I can really describe it is that there is a war being waged inside my mouth, and the left side is getting absolutely torn to pieces. It isn’t even close.
It’s a bloody war zone in there right now and I wouldn’t wish this kind of suffering on my own worst enemy.
Okay, I’m really trying to soak up the sympathy here, I know.
I’m greatly concerned though. Not about the gory, bloody, fleshy nightmare currently taking place in the same location that I’m normally shoving copious amounts of really, really bad-for-you fast food into on a Sunday.
No, I’m worried that I’m about to experience an agony far worse than the one that has already befallen me over the last 24 hours…
Watching the New York Jets on Sunday Night Football against the Raiders.
One might suggest that supporting the Jets over the years is akin to being strapped to a dentist chair forever with horrible, cold, sharp, invasive objects probing your gums.
It may even exceed that nightmare scenario.
It has certainly felt like that so far this year. I was trying to explain this to someone the other day. I don’t know what it is but I just can’t get excited about the Jets this year. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t get up for gamedays anymore. I think that is in large part down to still not being over Aaron Rodgers going down hurt not even five minutes into his Jets career, but it is also because Zach Wilson makes Sam Darnold look like Joe Montana.
Sorry, Joe.
I mean, yes, the Jets are 4-4 and could climb above .500 with a win over the Raiders - which I don’t see happening, by the way - but even if they do it will no doubt be done in the ugliest of ways possible.
Go back and look at every game the Jets have played in this year, including every win, and they have all been incredibly hard to watch. The defense has been elite, Super Bowl worthy for the most part, but that offense is just a hot, steaming pile of stinking garbage.
I refused to get sucked in by the little flashes of brilliance Wilson has shown - and I use the word brilliance loosely - and I think I’ve been proven right the last couple of weeks. He’s been sacked 4-plus times in each of the past four games, including eight times by the Chargers on MNF last week, and he wants so long with the ball it is like he wants to make out with the pigskin.
Wilson is just not good. Period. And I won’t be convinced otherwise.
The offensive line is also trash and I have no hope that yet another tweaked and new-look combination will do much to protect Wilson against Maxx Crosby and the Raiders. And, when you have been outscored by 61-12 in the first quarter, it does make getting into games insanely hard.
I don’t know, man. This team has won three of its last four games, but it doesn’t feel like it. It is an absolute grind to watch this team on a weekly basis. Quite frankly, it is like pulling teeth. I was actually relieved when they were on a bye week because I didn’t have to suffer through the stress or the sheer frustration of being a Jets fan in 2023.
There’s no fun whatsoever in watching this team.
Not to labor the point but watching the Jets this year is like getting your teeth bashed in and your gums stabbed to death. It has been that painful at points. And I’m not even convinced it will get that much better. Hey, that’s what supporting this franchise does. It hacks away at any hope and joy you have left.
So, with a vast hole in my mouth, medicated up to my eyeballs and after a day in which I’ve had the hellish experience of having a dentist jab at me from all angles, I’m actually sat here like a sicko ready to embrace more pain.
What’s going to be more painful, having a wisdom tooth bury itself in my gum and rip through my cheek like a bullet, or watching the Jets in Las Vegas?
If it is the latter then I fear all Jets fans are in for a hell of a long, wretched and insufferable night.
Gulp. Wait, that hurts when I do that.
Anyway, bring on my second bout of suffering of the day…