With age goes wisdom
The coming and going of wisdom: Access via Lauren4PM
Google has given society many wonderful things: parents can diffuse any responsibility of imparting knowledge with their children, stalkers can find out interesting personal information about their prospective sweethearts and as I discovered two weeks ago, at the click of a mouse you can work yourself into an absolute frenzy before a medical procedure.
When I was told I would need to have my wisdom teeth removed in hospital, I researched every possible complication of the procedure until it seemed inevitable that the surgery would end negatively.
Yes, the possibilities were endless: infection, damage to other teeth, permanent numbness of the tongue, lip and chin, extreme pain from dry socket and, you guessed it, even death.
By the time of the operation, Google had enabled me to become a hysterical, melodramatic mess. I hugged my parents like it could be the last time, updated my Facebook status to ‘.. is about to go under the knife’ and finally donned the less-than-flattering backless gown that I pictured being buried in. And as I tasted the metallic air of the gas mask and felt me eyelids pull towards each other with a magnetic force, I felt incredibly sorry for myself.
Surprisingly, I survived. My Dad said I looked like Heath Ledger as the Joker and my entire face was numb but luckily the painkillers subdued me (unfortunately I later discovered they also had the tendency to make me dry retch). The Google search results had luckily been exaggerated. And I have never been happier to be wrong.
