A beautiful smile is always in style: Round Fourteen
“I’m getting really tired of this,” I sighed, Doc’s latex’d hands in my mouth again, pulling on things.
“Yknow, I have feelings too,” he joked, which actually did make me feel a bit bad for him.
And so I sang. Through the hardest part — ripping off the old metal thing on the impacted tooth, forcing my mouth open wide with that plastic mouth opener thing, cementing a new ceramic bracket onto the impacted tooth (now fully exposed like a great white yacht, but still floating above the gumline), then attaching invisible ties between certain teeth, including the impacted one — all through this I hummed the tune of Mrs. Robinson, since it was wafting from the speakers above us.
The dreaded rubber band is back. Doc actually thought I would approve of his ridiculous scheme to attach a (latex) band to a molar, then up to the impacted tooth, then back down to a bottom canine, THEN BACK UP to the imacted tooth again, creating a weird arrowhead shape in the front of my mouth, and, most importantly, not allowing me to actually open my mouth at all, or speak, or breathe, as the case may be.
“Oh no,” I mumbled. “Absolutely not. Take it off right now.”
“You know, I’m trying to make this treatment advance as fast as possible, and you’re almost there. I just want you to make the most progress quickly, but if you won’t wear the band….”
And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know. Wo-wo-wo…
We settled on the band attached to just one bottom tooth, reaching up to the impacted canine to pull it down into place. It looks ridiculous — at least with the crossbite debacle, you couldn’t really see the band — this time, it’s in the front right of my mouth. It looks like someone swapped my linguine for latex loops, which promptly got caught in my teeth. Like my sadistic orthodontist designed a white chastity belt for my top and bottom jaw to stay joined together in holy…um…
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson, heaven holds a place for those who pray. Hey hey hey…
“Am I only allowed to take this off when I eat?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said, “Unless socially or professionally or personally you find yourself in situations where you can’t handle it. At the very least, keep it on at night.”
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson? Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away. Hey hey hey…hey hey hey
There’s not much pain this time. Every third or fourth appointment has me in agony, lying helpless in bed for the rest of the day, but not this time.
“Can you see the finish line?” Doc asked.
“Yeah,” I admitted, seeing as my teeth are actually all straight now, minus the one that hasn’t grown in yet. “I can see it.”
Apparently I am a super patient, making progress faster than most patients. Super-patient! That’s wonderful, but I still can’t wait til this is over.