Read part one here

Being drugged to sleep and having a wisdom tooth out is more interesting than you'd think.

"So what are you missing to be here?"

I'm lying on my back as a woman in hospital garb wires me up to a heart monitor. Her two male colleagues are chatting away, helpfully distracting me from the sharp thing heading for my wrist.

"I work for a newspaper, " I say.

"Oh really? Which one?" I mention the name.

"I know that one, " says the friendly anaesthetist. "I only buy it for the property section.”

"Read my column, it's great, " I lie.

"Whereabouts is that? You'll feel a tingling sensation in your arm."

"It's in the leisure secti...."

Zonk.

I come round in a different room. My first thought is that it's the morning and that my bedroom looks weird – the sort of disorientation you get when you wake up in a tent and have forgotten you're camping. I twig where I am and lift my head slightly to mention that I'm awake.

"Burbghra a ghurf," I say. The nurse looks mildly concerned, popping an oxygen mask on my face and ushering my head back down again. Strangely, this makes me feel patronised. But it does feel very nice to lie down and shut my eyes, so I try that for a while.

I mentioned a fortnight ago that I was having a wisdom tooth out under general anaesthetic. Then I took a week off, because the surgeon said it would entail a week off and if the surgeon says so then it must be true. It's the first time I've ever been chemically knocked out and, if I'm completely honest, I was slightly looking forward to it. It sounded quite interesting.

"It looked as if I was storing a tennis ball in the corner of my mouth, like a sporty hamster"And it was quite interesting. I had a bit of a dream while I was under – no idea what it was about, the memory seemed to evaporate the second I came to, but it was definitely a dream. The oddest thing is that I can't recall the point at which I lost consciousness. I remember the first snippets of an entirely lucid conversation and then nothing. No closing remarks, just a timeline which turns nebulous and confusing instead of reaching a tangible end point.

Perhaps this happens every time we fall asleep, it's just that the transition to unconsciousness is less pronounced when you're lying still in a darkened room with your eyes shut. That's basically like being asleep, only more boring.

Anyhow, that was the anaesthetic – what about the tooth? I'm going to pretend you asked that. Bringing this column into the 21st century with a bit of reader interaction.

Well, they wouldn't let me keep it. Apparently they're massive, teeth, like bony icebergs burrowing down into your face, so I was looking forward to having a good old nosey at whatever was pulled out of mine. No such luck though – these days they just hack stuff off and chuck it in the bin instead of letting you keep it, presumably for reasons of health and safety. They've obviously never heard of the tooth fairy. Doesn't matter how much tomato soup they gave me after the operation, it's not the same as getting a quid.

I turned into the Elephant Man the next day, my gums swelling up into a weird pulpy mass. It felt like the inside of a ripe plum when I touched it, a sensation so unsettling that I successfully banned my tongue from going anywhere near it for days. From the outside, it looked as if I was storing a tennis ball in the corner of my mouth, like a sporty hamster.

I barely left the house, and when I finally did venture out to buy ice cream and other things which could be eaten without chewing, I drove to a shop where they wouldn't recognise me. I wore a hat, too. Not the greatest disguise, but a false beard seemed excessive.

By the end of the week it had sorted itself out, but six days inside had converted me from a happy go lucky office-based cynic into a full-blown cake-eating recluse. I read something the other day about how working from home can make you go mad. I think I was halfway there.