This Friday

I'm having oral surgery to repair some receding gums behind my front lower teeth. A tissue graft will be implanted at the gum line, my gum will be pulled up and stitched over it. Needless to say, this sounds awful, but apparently they do it with Novocain and I can drive away from the surgery after it's complete.

Now, I had some initial questions about the source of the tissue and when I asked, the people at the office sort of non-answered me by explaining that the tissue was disease free, had been thoroughly screened, that there'd never been an incident of disease transmission in over fifteen years. Fine. But that doesn't really answer the question.

One of the graphic designers in the office is dating a dental hygienist and she told him she suspected the graft came from either a pig or a cow. That poses quite the dilemma for a vegetarian, no? So I called up the oral surgery and asked and they directed me to various websites of the product they use and the product provider. I read this:

Skin is obtained by a surgical procedure. Skin grafts are typically recovered from the back, abdomen and legs and may vary in thickness from .005” to .035”. In most instances, the procedure takes one to two hours.

So, what I'm wondering here, dear readers, is this: do you think "back, abdomen and legs" means buttocks? I'm cool with the three listed, but buttocks is just too horrible to contemplate.