> tapioca world tour

So they popped off the bracket of my FIC (formerly impacted canine, now fully down) and recemented it in a higher position today (which involved that horrible contraption that pries your lips open to an embarrassing degree, and a spit-sucker, and tons of skinny intruments making odd, mechanical sounds). The tooth is minorly tilted to one side, and has been edging back up into the gums in recent weeks, especially since I forfeited the elastics, deciding that they (a) hurt, and (b) weren’t very effective. But once they attached the wire to the tooth today, it began coming down to where it should have been all along. Next month, they’ll put my front teeth in a heavy metal wire to push everything into final position.

“This is the home stretch,” Doc reminded me, using the same athletic-related terminology as last month. “We might be all done by December.”

December? That’s way longer than the 12-14 months initially predicted, and longer than the 18 months he reassessed as my revised treatment time. I reminded him of this.

“What? No way. It hasn’t been that long.”
“No, really,” I said. “December will make it 20 months.”
“No!” Then he checked the computer to verfiy for himself. “Oh, my. You’re right,” he sighed. “December will be 20 months. Dammit, I want everyone to be done in 18 months. I wanted you to be done in 18 months. I’m gonna have to do something about that.”
“Well then,” I said, “I look forward to October, when you take these off.”

In truth, part of me is actually sad. However masochistic it sounds, I’ve gotten used to going to the orthodontist, getting harassed by the doctor and well accomodated by his staff of demure Brazilian assistants. What happens when it ends? This must be how athletes feel after the final game. Except, instead of a game, it’s been six grand worth of oral torture and aesthetic readjustments. At least you can all visit me on the ortho’s website after it’s over, since my featured “case study” will appear online when the braces come off. Why? Because I am a faulous dental success, people.

Did you notice that? I’m using digits, now that we’re past the twentieth appointment, however it’s only been 15 months since all this started.

And guess WHAT??!

[You say, WHAT?!]

My impacted canine tooth is 85% in! Not, you know, “grown in”, but successfully pulled in artificially. Doc was very happy about that. It’s still not ready to have the bracket yanked off (rather, I’m still not ready, apparently, to endure the wrenching pain of having the bracket yanked off and re-cemented in a better position) so he just laid the wire ON TOP of the canine’s bracket, weird as it sounds, so that the tooth will get pushed down even more, aided by the dang latex elastics I’m still wearing. And now I have to wear elastics on the OTHER canines, too, “because,” explained the doc, “your smile is tilting to one side. So you have to wear elastics on your opposite canines unless you want to smile like this” [tilts head to one side, grinning].

My smile is tilting to one side?
“I.,” I asked the 10-year-old I was babysitting, “Is my smile tilting to one side?”
I. looked up from her book and inspected me, grinning like an idiot.
“Oh, yes. It is.”
Baaaaaah!

The good news is, I’m “in the home stretch,” he says. The hills are alive, the rainbow is in sight, we’ve got the kids and we’re about to finally cross the border. Something like that. I anticipate this means these lovely, expensive, ceramic adult braces will be off, as scheduled, in the fall — not in enough time to attend several September weddings, but at least I’ll be able to chew the chicken or beef entree with all my teeth precisely aligned.

This experience has been, by all accounts, not even kidding, excellent. If you’re in the Boston area and are looking for an awesome (albeit cheeky) adult orthodontist, talk to me.

I have nothing fascinating to report: my teeth are on their way to being beautiful, and the impacted canine is now about 65% in. Which is, if you haven’t been paying attention to our developing story, very exciting. They put a little hook on the bottom wire, slightly more to the right, upon which I now attach those dang elastics to the canine…but magically, voila! Changing the direction of its movement has yanked the tooth down significantly in only 24 hours. If this were a baseball game, my grounder would still be rolling in the outfield and I’d be in a mad dash halfway between second and third base on the first out of the eighth inning. Just, you know, to give you some perspective. Because I know how enraptured you all are with the story of my oral reconstruction. Yes, there will be an afterparty when I win the Series.

The end.

Se fue la misery! Round 19 went pretty well, all things considered. I got the same now-lame rap from my doc: I enjoy torturing you, bla bla bla, but really there was very little pain involved in my monthly adjustments today.

Of course, the second he looked at my teeth, he said, “Why isn’t your impacted canine down yet?”

“I dunno,” I said. “You tell me. You’re the doctor.”

Granted, it’s only been a mere 10 months since they began yanking on the dang thing, but every half-millimeter it descends brings me closer to perfect teeth. Today they attached a cut-off wire from it to my top right molars, then replaced the regular wire on the rest of the top teeth, cutting it at the point where it should reach up to grab the impacted tooth (this is to prevent “stressing” my FST, formerly sideways tooth, so that its nerve won’t die).

Anyway, by my 28th birthday, the tooth should (should? should!) be all the way down, which would be marvelous because then I’d be not only pushing 30 but very nearly completely “fixed”, orthodontally-speaking.

“How much longer, seriously, will this take?”

“Soon,” he said, his fingers twisted in my mouth.

“No, I mean in a macro sense, how long?”

“Oh,” he sighed. “You want a hard number? It’s hard to tell, based on your canine, but I’d say we’re looking at some point in the next six months.”

Did you HEAR THAT? Reconstruction will be DONE in the next six months. You heard it here first, people: I WILL be able to chew steak, gum and roast beef sandwiches in six months. That also means I will no longer waltz into the ortho office and get treated like a rockstar: “Hey, I like your hair.” (Office manager, sweet person.) “Very cute.” But whatever, things are much better orally than they were a year ago. Yeah, I’ll post photos soon. That’s my update.

It was fast: he clipped the wire where my impacted tooth is slowly making its way into place. He changed ties and then they made me wear those AWFUL tight rubber bands again to pull the tooth down for rizzo. I’ve been cheating the past hour, took the rubber band off. Can’t take the pain! Wow!

Progress hurts, man.

We fought the whole time, and for the rest of the night all I could do was lie in bed, almost crying and unable to eat, but my seventeenth appointment was still kind of awesome, in a cheap-trashy-novel kind of way:

“So, how are the teeth looking?”

“Exactly the same,” I said. Except now, instead of a crossbite, I have an underbite.”

“Whatever. We completely fixed that crossbite.” Doc poked and prodded around my mouth, gloating about his sadistic prowess to his new, attractive assistant: “I’ve made this woman cry so many times, you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Yeah,” I said, “And I see how proud it makes you.”

“Oh please,” Doc snuffed, gesturing to the computer screen with its before photos of my mouth from April 2005. “Look how awful your teeth looked when you showed up here. Those were tears of gratitude, darlin, not of pain.”

“I want so badly to hit you.”

Thus began another twisted appointment at the orthodontist’s. To really smear his smugness all over my face, as it were, Doc proceeded to force a thick METAL wire onto my bottom teeth. “Metal!” I yelled. “You’re breaking our agreement! I never agreed to a metal wire!”

“Oh suck it up!” he said. “This is the only wire that will really turn out your canines and widen your bottom jaw, which will fix that underbite you’re complaining about.”

“I can’t believe you’re so mean to me,” I whispered, barely audibly, his fingers twisted in my mouth.

“Are we whispering now?” he mocked back, his voice a shadow of my own. “Does it make you feel better if we whisper? You enjoy the torture, admit it.”

“I hate you.”

And then we started laughing, because shoving a heavy metal wire into the metal clasps on my back molars hurts like crazy, and sarcasm, sadism, laughter and pain have become the nature of our relationship.

And then he started singing “Sweet Caroline” so I wouldn’t notice how much it hurt, except he couldn’t remember the lyrics so he supplemented words with “daaa daa daaaa”.

“Good times never seemed so good,” I mumbled.
“Good times never seemed so good!” he sang.

“I’d be inclined,” (da da da) “to believe they never would…”

“I’m going to miss you,” he said suddenly.

“Uh huh,” I answered, because what else are you supposed to say to your young, cheeky, married doctor with six months of appointments left until you can eat a hamburger again?

This whole experience is so weird.

The moving train of my orthodontal adventure continues to tunnel through winter with its engine in flames.

“My bite is all messed up,” I told the doc, when he asked me to bite down. “I know. Your bite is terrible,” he said. “But that’s normal. The teeth are moving all the time.”

So, he did things to realign me again, though I don’t know what. He popped off two brackets, then had his new assistant [Gael’s replacement] recement new ones to my teeth via a horrible mouth-stretching plastic contraption, causing me to swallow acetone since they didn’t use the spit-sucker the entire time, ending with my throat burning for a while. When all was said and done, I had new brackets and new wires (he wanted to put on metal wires but I refused, citing the fact that I already look 12) and now, two days, three muffins, two bowls of overcooked noodles and many hours of achey mouth later, everything looks great. Except, needless to say, for the gaping hole in the front of my mouth waiting to be filled by my now infamous impacted canine, which is *still* hanging out just above the gumline, inching down ever so slowly. The only uplifting thing is that I don’t have to yank it down with clear rubber bands anymore in the front of my mouth; they’ve attached invisible rubber bands from my molar to the impacted canine, pulling it down in a much more subtle fashion.

In other news, I got my passport renewed today. Can’t believe it’s been almost 10 years since I got the last one. Looking at my old passport, I noticed my teeth in the photo. How messed up they were at eighteen! How straight they are now! I like when I see fast returns on investments. It keeps the blood boiling and the gratitude high.

September, Doc says. This will all be over by September.

“I have a theory, completely hypothetical, of course.” I was vertical, lying on the sleek leather dentist chair. Doc was upside-down above me. “I think these two bottom teeth are glued together. I think they’ve been glued together for the past nine months.”

Doc tapped at it with some sharp instrument and we heard a crack. “Well geeze,” he said, “why didn’t you say something? You really have to learn to communicate with me.”

“I didn’t think I could possibly communicate with you any more than I already do. And I made the ridiculous assumption that, as the doctor, you would have realized by now that you had glued them together.”

“Well,” he sighed, “I’m glad you recognize your assumptions are ridiculous.”

Thus began another normal appointment at the sadistic orthodontist’s. He did some “discing” to the bottom teeth today, which means shaving the sides of them so they’ll line up together more cleanly, and he changed wires, and nothing hurt, and he yelled at me for deciding to attach rubber bands to random teeth, like the FST (formerly sideways tooth) to keep it from floating into the empty space that’s reserved for the canine tooth that is STILL on its slow way down from a sad life of impaction in my gums.

“Listen to me,” Doc chided. “DO NOT do that. DO NOT attach bands to that tooth. People do that, then they wonder why the root dies and their tooth falls out.” Falls out? Is that what happens? Whoops, sorry.

So now we wait another month for nothing to happen. All the speedy progress I made last spring has slowed to a very boring pace, since all my teeth are relatively straight now and the only main concern is the gaping hole in the front of my mouth because of the tooth that won’t show itself.

“You’re doing very well for someone on an 18-month plan,” Doc concluded, much to my horror.

“Maybe,” I said, “But I’m on a ‘12 to 14-month plan’, quote unquote, at least according to you last year.” So the moral of Round Fifteen is that my doctor is a liar, even if the lying is for my own good.

I’m no longer amused by this adventure. I want them off, I want them off, I want to bite into filet mignon, I want to not savor the taste of stretchy latex. Baaaaaaaaaaa!

“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.

They haven’t hurt me for a while, so I guess I was due.

My teeth haven’t seemed to improve much. The impacted tooth is still impacted. It hasn’t seemed to inch any closer to the gum, even though my Doc disagrees. “You’ve made tons of progress,” he said. But he hesitated to really pull hard on the teeth because I apparently “can’t handle it.”

“What’s this ‘can’t handle it’ stuff?” I asked him. “I can handle it.”
“Then how come whenever I touch your tooth, you scream?”
“Just fix them,” I told him. “I can handle it.”

Boooooooy was I wrong. He took me at my word, attaching invisible rubber bands between all my teeth which I can easily bet are strong enough to tug several large boats together. Granted, within an hour, my formerly sideways tooth (which had straightened out but sat a gap-width apart from the front teeth) magically moved over to where it should be. There’s virtually no gap left, which is amazing. But painful. Did I mention painful? It’s p-a-i-n-f-u-l. I’m not kidding.

To add to the misery, they put the band back onto the impacted tooth in an effort to drag it back down. I spent the bulk of the entire day attempting to sleep at Ry’s. I grovelled for a ride home, since I couldn’t fathom walking. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t eat. I still can’t. All I’ve had in 14 hours is a small bowl of soup and a large bowl of ice cream. The only good news is that, according to my doctor, I only have 6 months left of these ceramic bullets cemented to my teeth — and, at worst, 8 months. That means these could be off by my 28th birthday. I don’t know how that’s significant, but somehow it is.

In other news, our gas bill was a whopping $266 this month. We’re hardly ever home, and keep the heat low when we are. This leads me to believe that we have a gas leak (the smell of gas adds to this suspicion, as does the fact that the landlord admitted there’s a gas leak.) I’m calling NSTAR tomorrow to investigate. I refuse to waste my entire paycheck on a hole in the basement gas tank. Also, I refuse to freeze, although that’s looking like our next best alternative.

It’s going to be a long, cold winter. I think I’ll spend the entire time in other people’s houses, taking care of their children and eating their food.

Still toothless,
-A

Let me just say, I wish I weren’t so weak; I wish I could endure several extended seconds of intense pain, so that the doctor could have completed his process of whacking off the small metal thing that’s been cemented to my impacted canine tooth since June. But, alas, I started wailing, which apparently is not acceptable behaviour in a crowded orthodontist’s office, so Doc put away his dental pliers and stopped trying to yank the thing off. “We’ll try this next time,” he said, “because you can’t handle it. And by December, the tooth should be fully exposed.”

Oh my God! Really? Are you serious? The tooth will finally grow in, after four or five months of waiting?

Maybe.

Then he took off the invisible rubber band that’s been slowly dragging the impacted tooth down all summer long. By the grace of God, it’s supposed to drop down on its own. I won’t believe it til I see it, but what an exciting prospect!

Adjustments were painful as usual, since they’re in the process of manuevering my bottom teeth so that they’ll finish straightening out, and pulling on my top teeth to try to fill in gaps. I still don’t feel like much progress has been made, but four teeth are out, my crossbite’s fixed, and things are slowly coming along…as long as it’s all off by my 28th birthday, I won’t complain. In the meantime, I’ll complain tremendously when they attempt, next month, to wrench off the things they’ve cemented to various teeth. Because it hurts, people. It hurts like hell. Beauty comes with a price.

Onward!

“Wow! I’m really impressed by these developments. Your teeth are looking great — the crossbite is more or less fixed, and your bottom teeth will all be completely straight by next month. I’m happy for you, not just as your doctor but as your friend…”

Doc thinks he’s my friend but really he’s just some dude who makes sadistic and unprofessional comments about how he enjoys torturing me. But he’s done a good job and he means well. I like him despite his superfluous gender-based commentary, mostly due to this morning’s recent announcement that “You might have these off in less than a year.” What?! No way.

They got new long-sleeve t-shirts for orthodontal staff. They’re baby blue, and on the front they say something about a SMILE, and on the back it’s something about STYLE (no, not my cliche subject line. Some other kitsch phrase.)

My assistant friend D. looked ridiculous wearing it, and my opinion is the new dress code has in fact morphed the formerly commendable professional, high-end office environment into something akin to summer camp, possibly because all the assistants and secretaries are under 30. The doctor is the only one who wears scrubs now, elevating him to The One With Authority. I should mention something about this to him on my next visit. He likes to talk style with me, which is ironic since I sported my ripped, inherited leather jacket, old, uncool jeans and socks-with-sandals accoutre today. It’s amazing what kind of weird corporate respect you get when you succeed in pretending to be young, hip, or both.

For those of you who actually care about the orthodontal specifics: today they put those white-metal clamp things onto some bottom teeth in an effort to turn them into a straight position. They repeated this process for a top tooth that’s being pulled forward. The impacted canine (sigh) is still impacted, but edging ever more rapidly down to the gum line, plus [insert creepy music here] you can now fully see half of the tooth in the gum, i.e., it’s emerging up from the gum’s surface like a quiet white submarine. It can’t really grow down yet, as the FST (Formerly Sideways Tooth) is blocking it, but next month we’ll pull that one into position (the position it should have taken when I was seven years old) and, by Thanksgiving or Christmas, God willing, all will be well.

Much love to all my anonymous adult homies from archwired.com with orthodontal problems. We suffer together, people…though I’m gonna be eating steak again before all y’all.

Now the madness is down to a monthly basis. I went in after four weeks of happy steak-eating and came out unable to chew macaroni. Oh well.

For the benefit of my archwired readers, here are the dumb dental details:

They changed out the bigger wire on top (thank you God), replacing it with another skinny, light one; they attached ALL the teeth (this is a first! there was never enough room to do that before) — the result is a rollercoaster track of wire. Meanwhile we wait, wait, wait until the damn impacted canine takes its sweet sweet time to show itself. “I better be able to see it by the next time you come,” Doc said. You and me both, buddy.

Hot hot ortho assistant Gael has been replaced by a taller, hairier Brazilian ortho assistant. Fortunately I got worked on by the doctor alone, “since you’re a special case,” he told me. That means I have too many problems to entrust my case with a mere assistant. Plus I might deck the assistant if he hurts me, and the doc doesn’t mind as much when I deck him.

*****Postscript — So 10-or-so hours after the adjustment, Oh My God I wanted to DIE. I cried half the car ride up to Vermont. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. It was really awful. I’ve said it a million times already, and I’ll say it again: if I don’t look so hot when all of this is over, somebody’s gonna pay. About 6 grand.

Parting is such sweet…dental pain? Hmm…

I still love going to the ortho, despite all the discomfort and achy gums, because I feel like Norm in Cheers, where everyone shouts my name when I walk into the bar, I mean office.

“You know what?” Doc said. “You’re my favorite patient.”
“I don’t wanna hear it,” I said, knowing he was buttering me up for something awful.
“No, I’m serious. If you weren’t my patient, you’d be my buddy.”
“You always do this,” I said. “You dish out nice compliments before doing some painful procedure.”
“No, I mean it,” he insisted. “If you weren’t my patient, I’d totally hang out with you.”

And then he replaced the annoying plastic chain from the impacted tooth to the molar with a more painful, tighter chain, and inserted a rubber band inside my mouth to correct the crossbite in my top and bottom right teeth.

“Oh man,” I complained. “You’re not serious. Tell me I don’t have to have this thing in my mouth all the time.”
“I want you to wear it 24 hours a day, except when you eat and brush.”
“Or maybe I’ll only wear it when I sleep,” I decided. “Talk to me about pallette expansion. I don’t want it.”
“If you wear this rubber band 24 hours a day, it’s possible we won’t have to go ahead with pallette expansion.”

As I mentioned before, I am in a privileged yet tiny class of people who have every orthodontic problem in the book, making me a prize-winning guinea pig for my doctor to experiment on. He has a ball, poking and prodding; I make snide comments and pretend to be tough about it, then I usually cry. The process repeats every month, until they love seeing me come in the door, and I swallow my pride and we start the sick charade all over again.

But the most important addendum to this orthodontal chronicle is that today marked hot hot ortho assistant Gael’s last day in the office before moving back to Brazil for dental school. He promised to leave me some MPB (Musica Popular Brasil) cds, along with his email address. “So I can email you photos of all the crap they continue doing to my mouth?” Yeah. In Brazil. “Whatever, I got a man anyway. You’re funny and friendly and you did a very nice job cementing ceramic blocks to my teeth and you look like Gael Garcia Bernal, but I don’t need you.” I didn’t say it but I definitely thought it. What this means is that D., the other ortho assistant, will be the only one to work on me from now on. He started off shy and quiet, but now he falls to giggles when I walk through the door, knowing that some type of comedy will ensue. Seriously, it’s like being in an episode of Cheers. Which was most definitely my favorite show of the 80s.

So now I’m orally full of rubber bands, which will make eating all the more interesting, and is already adding a wonderful rubber flavor to my saliva. Mmm, I love crossbite realignment! I love having a huge gaping hole in the front of my mouth! I love having an invisible plastic band digging into my upper gums. LOVE IT! I LOOOOOVE IT!

The worst is over, friends. At least that’s my naive assumption.

So I went back to the ortho yesterday to get the fourth and final tooth pulled. “Are you serious?” asked D., the other assistant at the desk. “He’s really going to pull another tooth? “Yes,” I answered. “I think his secret strategy is to slowly pull every tooth in my mouth, then replace the whole thing with new dentures.”

Doc got nervous in between giving me shots, because I kept telling him how much I hated this. To make me less anxious, he decided to flirt with me, without knowing how lame and overdone and ineffective that strategy actually is. “You know I love you,” he said, novacaine needle in hand. “I DON’T CARE,” I said, and meant it. By the time he had to do five shots to my upper pallette, he leaned down and whispered nervously: “Now listen, there are other patients here. Please don’t scream.” (I have this tendency to scream and/or cry and/or shout if I start experiencing pain. I find it’s a helpful and expedient way to alieve said pain, and increase the doctor’s precaution and gentleness.) “Promise you won’t hurt me,” I told him. “I can’t promise you that,” he sighed.

At least he doesn’t lie to me. I can’t stand liars.

Long story short: fifteen minutes and several pairs of pliers later, my tooth was out. Then they changed the upper wire, pulling it tighter (which again made me cry, although I tried really hard not to), then he attached a practically invisible clear plastic elastic band between my high-up exposed tooth in the gum and a molar in the back. The intent is to pull down the impacted tooth into the place of the tooth they just pulled. All of this merely validates my assertion that fast and effective dental health is gained not by a year at the ortho when you’re 27, but by slamming your teeth into a fire hydrant when you’re in your teens so you can get dentures and never have to worry about anything ever again.

But now for the absolutely awful news of 2005: Hot hot ortho assistant Gael is moving back to Brazil. In a month. For four-year dental school. “Your next appointment is August 5th,” he told me. “That might be the last time I ever see you…”

[Enter my self-centered heart breaking like crooked teeth against a fire hydrant.]

Nobody told me the hot orthodontal assistant would be leaving! This is a tragedy! What’s the point of going now? Where’s my incentive, other than straight teeth and a normal bite? We were supposed to start going dancing and trading cds and, and…and…
At least all the awful surgery is over. They won’t have to do anything too dramatic to me anymore, so I won’t be too emotionally destitute without Gael’s supportive presence (also hotness).

So that’s life, eh? I’m toothless and foodless and stuck in a Somerville flat until the swelling goes down. Aint that always how it is…

Did you know that a large gap between your two front teeth will close within 40 minutes if you attach a little plastic band to them? One of the many things I discovered this morning on my seventh trip to the ortho.

“It’s my favorite patient!”
I love going to the ortho, even though every time I leave either crying or bleeding or both, because hot assitant Gael says things like this when I walk in the door.

Today we were supposed to continue with fun fun exposure surgery. Regular readers will remember the disgusting details from last time, when they tore open my upper gums trying to expose an impacted canine tooth, and then the novacaine bled out, and I started crying, and the doc flipped out and sent me home. It was messy and dramatic — woo! So this time they intended to cut more gum away and expose the tooth again and bond a metal thing to it. As it turned out, I’d been making sure the gums didn’t grow back over the tooth, so they didn’t have to cut anymore off. Hot Gael merely went to work cementing a metal thing onto it and making excuses for not giving me the Brazilian music mix he’d promised to burn. I am the only sicko adult who gets her teeth straightened for the sole purpose of hitting on the doctor’s assistant.

Doc was more interested in my interior design opinions about whether or not postmodern paintings would add to or detract from the pristine ambience of the office than in talking about my teeth. “It would bring the postmodern design theme to higher level,” I told him. “Hmm, I really value your opinion,” he said. “Now we have to pull your other tooth.” No! “You can’t do that today! I knew you were gonna say that! I have to have several days to be mentally prepared,” I said. And so, the last and final extraction happens Friday, and I better as hell get a Brazilian cd as compensation.

This means, however, that I will have an emormous gap in the front right portion of my mouth until the impacted tooth gets successfully tugged down. “Realistically,” I asked, “how long will it take? A few months, or a long time?” “What’s your idea of ‘a long time’? Because it could take a few months,” he said, “or it could take nine months.” NINE MONTHS?

“You think nine months is a long time for a tooth to come down?” Gael asked me, holding my jaw. “Nine months is a pregnancy,” I told him. “It’s an entire school year.” Certainly an unacceptably long amount of time to wait for a tooth that’s already had 27 years to simply hang out in the gum. The word demasiado comes to mind as appropriate: Too much. Too long to wait.

And so, we pray. And we buy smoothies and burn jazz piano cds for Gael, and we refrain from smiling too wide, not only because there are large holes in our mouth, but because when we do the awful metal things on the molars slash awful gashes into the sides of our mouths. Again, I better look so hot when this is all over.

Because there is a God, I was spared from further surgery (or rather, it was delayed) until after I return from Texas in another two weeks. However, I did get to hang out with my favorite orthodontal team as they poked and pulled wires and plastic chains. Woo!

“Are you going to cry again today?” was the first thing Doc said as I walked in the door. I gave him a patented Glare of Death. “Probably,” I snipped.

In exchange for his crack, I walked strategically past him after my wires were tightened, just as he was leaning over a new teenage patient with her doting mother. “Thanks for not using the knife today,” I snickered. About ten feet behind me, I could hear the mother asking quizzically, “The knife?” followed by my doc’s nervous responses of “Err, um…” Ha ha.

At least next time I’ll be getting a Brazilian pop cd from hot Gael, which is a belated pity present for sobbing like a fool in the surgery chair the other day and an early pity present for getting my gums sliced up a second gruesome time. “Hey, in exchange for giving you the cd, what do I get?” Gael asked me on my way out. “You get nothin, buddy,” I said, “until I get something from you.”

Always leave them wanting more.

I wrote a stunning and lengthy (stunningly lengthy) summary of my ortho exposure surgery yesterday, but alas, due to Round/Wordpress updates, it got deleted.

I will repeat none of it, since it was bloody and awful anyway. Just know it was bloody and awful and, although without much pain, I don’t recommend you run to your orthodontist and allow him to razor-blade a hole through your upper gums anytime soon, cause it aint no good. No good!

*** On edit ***
Ok fine. Here’s a brief, monosyllabic summary:

Novocane. Cutting. Blood. More blood. Hot orthodontal assistant Gael promises to sing to me. Impacted tooth is exposed. Waiting. More waiting. Novocane starts wearing off. Gael attempts to clean off tooth but I can feel it. It hurts. It keeps bleeding. I start crying. Whoa! They get freaked out. They send me home. Gael promises to bring me a CD of Brazilian pop when I return later this week. Doc calls me late tonight, making sure I don’t hate him. Assures me we won’t continue with the surgery this week if I don’t feel I can handle it. A six-year old jumps around on my lap during the entire phone conversation, waiting for me to continue reading Deltora Quest, a sci-fi adventure series for first graders. “I’m ok,” I tell the doc. “I’m not in any pain. I’m fine.” And I am. The end.

I still don’t recommend this procedure. If you have an impacted canine tooth, bang it against a doorknob til it gets loose on its own or just falls out. Because not only is this procedure painful and disgusting, it’s also expensive. Boo! But it makes you feel tough — and that, as we know, is priceless.

Have I mentioned what a terrible crush I have on Gael, code name for the ortho assistant? He’s probably reading this thinking, “I knew she was crazy! I knew it!” No man. I’m just a writer. I sensationalize all aspects of my boring daily life to feel like it’s dynamic, interesting, and literary.

Despite the incredible pain of moving and clenched teeth getting plastic chains attached to them (emphasis on incredible pain) the experience was, as always, fun, because all the guys at the office are funny. Reason number 947 why Gael is the best thing ever, in addition to his hotness and his niceness and his Bossanova: he plays the piano…

…in church.

It really could never get any better than meeting a nice international dude who’s into all types of music and fun dancing and sadistic aesthetic dental work and no medicine or drugs who is sarcastic and funny and who plays the piano in church. Were I to create a bulleted list of ideal traits in a guy, these would all be on there. Like, at the very top. Because I’m odd, and the traits I value in others are skewed a bit from the norm. Gael also put up with my quiet crying and not-so-quiet moaning as he elasticized a tooth that aches like all hell. He did a good job, considering I’m a tough patient.

Doc and I spoke a few sentences in Spanish after the madness had ended, and the assistants overheard.
“You speak Spanish?” Gael asked.
“Yeah,” I said, omitting the fact that my Spanish is terrible.
“You’ve gotta learn Portuguese,” he said.
“So I can eventually converse with our children in their native tongue?” I asked silently.
“Today’s word is ‘ciao’. You probably already know ciao.”
“Yup,” I said, turning to leave. “Boys, I appreciate all your torture today. Ciao.”

I don’t get to see them for a month! A month! What am I supposed to do with myself til then? Just casually show up at the Brazilian Cultural Center, like I’ve gone there consistently since my freshmen year of college, which was the last time I went for capoiera? Not a good plan.

So the moral of the story is moving teeth hurt like hell when touched, or tugged, or pulled by elastics and wires. The other moral is seering pain is tolerable when inflicted by a really nice funny hot guy. I’m getting a little redundant with my morals after all these ortho soliloquies, but I just want to document the little details so I’ll have something to look back on when I’m old, alone and have perfect teeth.

Word.

First of all, I’d like to express my gratitude for wonderful & supportive friends, particularly my coworkers S. and E. who, throughout this adventure, have been awesome. E. helped move the rest of my stuff into the new place late last night. Then today, he insisted S. use his car to pick me up from the ortho. S. not only picked me up; she got me smoothies and soup and toothpaste and gauze and was so so cool to me. They’ve both called several times since, and I’m happy to report I’m medicine-less and doing freakin fine, thankyouverymuch.

Now for the gory details you’ve all been waiting for:

There aren’t any. Tooth extractions and blood and pain shouldn’t induce the level of fear it generally does; nor should it stipulate any nasty physical effects resulting from said fear. I gotta tell you, it’s not easy getting over the fear of multiple permanent-tooth extractions, but I’m getting better with it. For me it’s a moral challenge: I know I can handle this, and quickly, and well, so I have to prove it.

Regardless, I wouldn’t recommend getting a billion teeth removed at once, just in case you were considering the adventure. However, all things being equal (and all adventures being valuable), I have to admit that, despite the physical discomfort and achy pain, I had kind of a good time today. I really like my ortho. And since I’ve developed a relationship with them as the psuedo-tough-girl-who’s-really-a-complete-baby, we get on well, Gael and Diego and Mo, my doc, and I. He gave me about 18 shots of novocane, which was pretty much the worst part. Nobody wants 18 injections inside any bodily cavity, least of all your mouth, least of all a wuss like me. But the doc was patient when I demanded him to stop every two minutes, made fun of me when I punched him in the chest (lightly), and proceeded to remove — via metal pliers, but painlessly — three of my teeth. (The fourth extraction, I learned, will wait a few months. Great.) The best part was that we even managed to have some meaningful conversation, even while the pliers were deep in my mouth, pulling out my bones: He recounted the story of The Little Prince for me, said the moral is I’m allowed to boss him around as long as I’m reasonable with my demands. Then we discussed parenting (ok so I’m not a legitimate parent, but boy do I feel like one with all these kids I look after), I mentioned I’m planning on adopting, he said he thinks I must be a pretty decent person. It was hearts and flowers all around. And then he pulled all my teeth out.

When it was all over, I went up to the desk to pay for the bit my insurance didn’t cover. Gael had returned from lunch. He was wearing an awesome aqua shirt. “Naahce shet,” [Nice shirt] I said through a face full of gauze. “Thanks,” he said. “You know, I’m beginning to understand your language….” Wanna go dancing? I didn’t ask, but wanted to. I like those boys at the desk. I like the doc. I like everybody. Even after two days without eating and a headache, stranded carless in an empty new flat, I’m quite happy. Really. And so, as I’m apt to do when I’m happy and toothless and in a bit of pain and unable to eat and completely alone, I’m watching my collection of Yul Brynner movies –Romance of a Horsethief and Anastasia tonight — because nothing says I love getting braces at 26 more than the Bolshevik Revolution.