Distracted By Gaming
Posted by 
iTZKooPA on Monday, April 27, 2009 - 25 Comments Tags: chinatown wars, demigod, hazy weekend, heroics, kel'thuzad, kirin tor, pain relief, self medication, video games relieve pain, wisdom teeth
iTZKooPA on Monday, April 27, 2009 - 25 Comments Tags: chinatown wars, demigod, hazy weekend, heroics, kel'thuzad, kirin tor, pain relief, self medication, video games relieve pain, wisdom teeth  I ran across this artistic presentation on Friday. |
If you happen to be my mother, then you noticed that I didn't post on Friday. I wasn't being lazy, or basking in the glorious amount of sunlight that Philadelphia had that day. No, I was having bones forcibly extracted from my skull because they failed to know their place (in my mouth). These so called "wisdom teeth" forced me to miss a day's worth of work, writing, and cleaning and put me through a substantial amount of discomfort and annoyance. The chemicals that I was pumped full for the early morning procedure lasted until around noon, at which time the gang of four started to beat on my nerve endings until the experience became too unbearable to sleep through. I rolled over and grabbed Arthas: Rise of the Lich King. I made it through two pages before I returned to kicking my legs in frustration.
I've always been intrigued by the studies showing that video games help hospital patients (and everyone else) deal with pain and the stress of their illnesses, such as transfusions or chemotherapy. With that in mind, and a little coaxing from my girlfriend, I fired up the computer and dove into Azeroth with reckless abandon. One, two, three, a half dozen hours passed me by as I continued to crush heroic after heroic. I wouldn't claim that the pain had vanished, I still felt it, but with my brain utterly distracted by DPS maximization, group creation, fishing, or dailies, it was pushed by the wayside. Thanks to my brain's limited capacity, the synapses continued to fire, but no one was home to receive delivery.
No, it wasn't just my Wolverine-like healing abilities taking over. I didn't even realize the positive effects of my "self medication" until the next morning where I awoke in agony, despite that fact that I went to bed feeling relatively well. I broke down and took the prescribed pain medication before I went back to my previous method of recovery. Once again, the hours passed and I was able to ignore the hardcore drugs in favor of GTA: Chinatown Wars, Demigod and a ton more of World of Warcraft.
In an odd twist, the pain actually helped Solidsamm substantially. During the course of the hazy weekend he bagged close to twenty achievements, hundreds of gold, leveled his fishing and cooking, participated in some new (to him) heroics, gained thousands of Kirin Tor rep, downed Kel'Thuzad for the first time and lost a collected 5 rolls on needed rogue loot. The little gnome managed all of this will keeping me, his driver, off the hard medication. Quite a weekend.
The pain still remains as of today, but it is tolerable so long as I don't try to chew, speak on the phone long, laugh loudly or yawn. Perhaps I am milking it a bit. Hey, when else in your life do you get a perfectly reasonable excuse to drink milkshakes 3-4 times a day? Now I know what I will be doing if I ever break a bone. I feel a twang of pain...back to Azeroth.
Reader Comments (25)
1!!! Nice Read!!
woot second
Same with me when i have a headache apparently mountain dew and WoW cure my headaches
heh, interestingly enough my best WoW days are when i'm ill or hung over. In fact i tanked three vanilla instances with my tankadin alt last time i was majorly unwell, and didn't wipe once. The pain makes you concentrate better i think :P
Wait, you opted for WoW over Percoset? While I question your priorities, I admire your... dedication?
Oh man, I can't imagine where I'd have been without my painkillers when I had my wisdom teeth yanked.
Dude no way i did the same thing when i got my wisdom teeth out!
the bleeding wouldn't stop so i had to put a tea bag in my mouth to stop it. (it coagulates the blood).
anyways i had that and was also on vicadin
caffeine+vicadin = 9 straight hours of gameplay (and levels 72-75)
it was the best wow session i ever had because the vicadin made everything soooo interesting (and i posted some wierd stuff in guildchat : P lol)
I had my wisdom teeth out 7 years ago. Suffering from the screaming mimi's I started a marathon session of Civ. Before I knew it the sun was coming up. Gaming is a great distraction from pain.
Very strange, but when i am @ that point between almost drunk and just above tipsy, i focus more on pvp, and instances, and enjoy it more.
And pharmacies, should prescribe WoW as a dose to be taken after many a weekend, downing the beers.
For some reason theres nothing more satisfying than nuking a horde in wsg, or defending our base, as horde countless attempts fail. Love it. And the alcohol helps.
You shouldn't be reading this if your under 18 levels old ( 21 levels if your in USA.) lol :P
@on the buses
i know eh? us horde suck at PvP but dude when comes to the PvE we just leave you speechless LOL!
I normally just take a tylenol and go back to WoWing or if its really bad take a nice little nap :)
When I'm sick or ill or on pain meds, playing WoW makes me dizzy. Sucks too, because it would be the perfect day to spend playing!
Hope the pain subsides soon... I had my wisdom teeth taken out last year. Not fun.
@ pixie
i think its really cool that you have been posting comments on other blogger's posts. There has been a few blog posts on here that i would've liked to see how some of the other PL bloggers felt or thought of the topic.
lets hope it continues ;]
Great post btw iTZKooPA, i do the same thing =]
wow, im getting my wisdom teeth out next weekend.. excited to WoW all weekend afterwards! haha
great post!
haha wow im also getting my wisdom teeth out this friday. hope i can profit off it like you did
I guess I'm like...one of the only people who didn't have to get any of my Wisdom Teeth out at all. They're not in perfectly, but they're not bothering me and my doctors have yet to say anything about "They may be a threat later on" or anything.
So...I apologize that I get to completely avoid the damage so many people have to deal with for a few days <_<
I feel for you really I do. I like the fact your keeping away from the pain meds a little. Give it a few more days you feel right as rain. I think the wisdom teeth have extra nerves attacted to them just so they hurt worst. I still dont understand why dentist always want to take them out. Luckly I don't need my wisdom teeth taken out. Hope you feel better soon.
Great Post!
I wish I had WoW back when my teeth were pulled. And milkshakes?! Damn that sounds good. I sucked down mashed potatoes :)
hmm hopefuly you feel better soon. i happen to be lucky and have teeth that are too small for my mouth so its unlikely ill be getting them pulled but when i wake up sick, there is nothing better then wow, hands down.
I totally agree....after i had a kindey transplant due to cancer my girlfriend managed to seek me in my laptop and i plugged in to wowland and yea i was hurting but not like you would expect (could have been the morphine drip :P) but having to go though multiple chemo treatments WOW has made the treatments more bearable and yes i have noticed when i am having my bad days wow helps to take your mind off the sickness and its a good stress relief for me
i had 4,yes i said 4, kidney stones about 3 months ago. the pain was so sevier that i was out of work for almosth 4 weeks until my doctor finally descide to do an out-patient surgecal procedure called "lithotripsie"(at least thats how i think its spelled) dureing that "off-time" i made a hunter alt and lvled him from 1 to 50. i havent played that toon since,he kinda reminds me of the excruciating pain. I was on a huge dose of oxy-morphine and some other "happy"pills.lol
I have all 4 of my wisdom teath and they came in fine so i dont have to have them removed,but i do feel you with the pain. sounds painfull!
by the way
FOR THE HORDE!
hehe i could imagine "sir are you ready for your treatment?" "ONE SECOND!! i need to finish this instance!!" lol...but i have occasionally worked off a headache or two with WoW and on one morning had to deal with the pain of my bottom front teeth pushing passed eachother (one went forward the other wetn backwards)...though i will admit WoW has caused several headaches by itself
I had two impacted teeth removed about two years ago, so I at least somewhat know what you're going through. If it helps you feel any better, at least you didn't have a reaction to the anethesia and/or pain meds, because I literally could not keep anything down (not even water). That really sucked. >_<
Almost EXACTLY what I did when I had my wisdom teeth taken out a few months ago. WoW is a cure-all...
I'll be the first person to actually sympathize with you, having gone through the exact same thing.
I mean, I love how dentists realize they have to knock out their patients to extract (yank) those pesky and often times useless teeth. But the novocain never lasts long enough to numb pain, just numb everything else until you're a drooling mess.
I had all four pulled at once and, while I usually have a VERY high pain threshhold, this was beyond me. The month it took me to finally get back to functional normal (perjoratively speaking) was spent glued to my computer doing anything and everything that required brain power. I can't count how many times I took my comp apart to put back together just to do something.
And all this highly sanctioned by my ex-ER nurse of a Mom.
Stick it out for a bit longer, week 2 is usually the easiest one. And make strawberry milkshakes. The extra Vitamin C helps.
had 2 of mine pulled a few years back....i had the broght idea of going out to a friends party that night...i felt great at the time....woke up the next day jaw swollen toa good twice its size and a fever that could kill lol....
i wish i would have thought to stay home and play video games...would have probably saved me alot of pain
This is the exact method I used during my recovery time after my surgery(won't go into details) but I had an excrutiating 4 weeks of NOTHING to do lol.