It Started Out So Well...

I woke up this morning with a mission. Two weeks ago another bracket popped off and I was sure that I was going to tell my orthodontist to put it back on—as well as the one that came off six months ago that he didn’t replace. Those teeth have been giving me the most trouble as they feel the most out of whack. I can’t chew on my left side. I haven’t been able to for months. And one of my bottom teeth is tucked over the bracket missing tooth on the right side. I started to feel compression on my ear. This was, to say it lightly, not going well.

I bumped into my friend Brett and his dog Quincy in the street on the way to the doctor. Brett has lovely teeth. I took this as a good sign that things would go well with my conversation with the ortho.

I wrote out about four paragraphs in preparation for this conversation, as I express myself better when I write than when I talk. I get emotional and distracted and I seem to lose my point. But when I write, it’s all there in front of me. I feel comforted by bullet points. I can always just give the page to someone if I’m not getting my ideas across, like a lost and bewildered tourist gives a slip of paper with a destination written on it to a cab driver in a foreign city. Somehow I know I’ll get to where I need to go, if I can just hand over that piece of paper, the written word.

My little list was in my lap when I spoke to the ortho about the missing brackets. He took a look, and started to do more work on me than he has since I first got the braces on. As he, and one of the assistants were working on me, I saw his eyes wander to my list, reading. And then I saw his jaw stiffen. I had a feeling it was going to be downhill from here.

A half an hour later, when I looked in the mirror, I saw that he didn’t replace the clear ceramic brackets, but instead left those teeth untouched and added thick metal brackets with tubes on them to the teeth next those, behind them. When I asked him why he didn’t replace the brackets, he rather testily says that those teeth are “not your problem” but that the ones next to them are at a 90 degree angle, and he can’t put brackets on the other teeth if is going to fix that with the metal tubes. (Which leads me to wonder why these metal tubes weren’t put on in the first place 16 months ago! I mean, hello? ) I said that I haven’t been able to chew or grind for 16 months and I’m concerned about this going forward, because I need to know if I will be able to chew in the end!

It would have been very simple for him to just say, “of course you’ll be able to chew.” But he didn’t. He started pontificating about how he wants a correct bite for me—and for all the “thousands of patients I see.” And that “anyone who saw where you were when you started and sees where you are now would think the change and progress was nothing short of miraculous.” (Way to pay himself on the back there!) But the kicker was, and he was still testy and defensive as he said it, “It might be the case that this may take longer than originally stated.”

He was so unreassuringly unsympathetic that I just didn’t want to push the issue because he clearly was not in a place where we could have a calm conversation about this. I told him that I wanted a plan, to know what we are doing next, and he told me that we’re closing up the spaces on the bottom and now turning the premolars in the back on the top, with the metal tubes on them, which sounds like a good short term plan, but chewing is a long term plan that’s closer to my heart.

Needless to say, I left his office and cried in the street.

I’m depressed. I’m dejected. I had been so looking forward to 2011 because it meant that I was getting my braces off at some point during the year, and now, maybe that is not the case. I’m tired of hurting. I’m tired of building my confidence only to have it shot down every month or two. It's awkward to talk with all this new metal in my mouth.

But I don’t want you to be down in the mouth. So watch this video instead. It will make you laugh. We'll return to your regularly scheduled program soon.