Who ever said wisdom just comes with age forgot to mention one other thing - wisdom also comes with pain - a great deal of pain, especially if it’s a wisdom tooth.

You see, when I was younger, my dad used to joke around about the idea of wisdom tooth. He said it’s a physical manifestation of how much wisdom you’ve actually gained. Haha! Very funny! But even back then I knew he was just kidding. As I learned from my lessons in Developmental Biology, the tooth actually erupts and shows itself at a certain age (17 to 21), hence the term “wisdom” was coined to refer to age.

All the while I thought that the tooth erupts like any other tooth - gradual, normal-looking and painless. Both my mom and dad had no problems when they had theirs so I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about mine. Oh boy was I wrong. You see, slightly after I turned 24, my lower left wisdom tooth started to erupt. It was so painful that I had to take painkillers just to relieve the throbbing in my head. For several months, I would feel the pain occasionally. It seemed like the tooth was going to come out less gradually than I thought. Good thing I eventually got used to it.

Now 3 years after, the pain went back. This time a hundred times more painful than what I could remember. In fact, just a week ago, I couldn’t even get out of bed because of it, so I decided it’s time to finally take the tooth out. I went to the doctor and had it checked. Bad news turned worse. The pain wasn’t just because the tooth was moving. It’s because it’s moving in the wrong direction. According to the X-ray, my wisdom tooth was oriented diagonally. Its crown was now pushing against the side of my second molar. Its movement, combined with the accumulation of food in the space between it and the 2nd molar, was causing the intense pain that I was feeling. The worse thing about it was that it cannot be removed through normal extraction. It has to be surgically removed. (huhuhu!)

So now, a week later, here I am - with a swollen left cheek, a stitched-up gum, and loaded with antibiotics and painkillers. I just came from the clinic and I’m still a bit in denial of what happened. This so-called wisdom tooth just cost me a lot of pain, a surgical procedure, several absences from work already, and abstinence from basketball and all strenuous activities. Whoever said wisdom just comes with age?