The miserable beginning

9 whole days have past by and although I have been meaning to write a new post... life with braces has been a little, distracting.

 

I will start at the beginning. The novelty wore off almost instantaneously. It was then it literally felt like an elephant had made its-fat-ugly-self too comfortable in my mouth.

Nelly had packed her bags and made her way INTO MY MOUTH.

Monosyll is also 'embraced'. He decided that it was extremely necessary to witness my first eating experience.

My culinary creation: Tuna pasta.

With a deep breath, I ate.

Monosyll found the whole thing highly amusing. I did not. After about 20 minutes, I had lost all of my dignity and felt like I had - unintentionally - caught an entire school of fish between my teeth.

Luckily, I too, found the funny side. We were both crying with laughter, proudly revealing our daily catch. Crying with laughter? Or, just crying.

It was important to get out of the protection of Mother's bosom as soon as possible. The longer you leave it the harder it gets. It was still hard. Forward planning meant I had a coke date with my friends at the quietest pub in town. I met my friends in the car park... I was silly and smiled closed-mouth and waving at them for a weirdly long amount of time. Of course, this then made it more difficult to open my mouth. I was being weird. Really weird.

I smiled

I was greeted with...

"oh. is that it?"...

"that's a little underwhelming"...

"where is your mouth full of metal".

At first I felt like I had cheated them, but I quickly began to realise that perhaps my life could still continue...

The pain came in waves approximately 24 hours after the bracing. Monosyll had warned me, for Monosyll seems to have self-appointed himself as The Brace-Guru. My Mouth Mentor. The Toothy Teeth Teacher. You get my drift...

Despite his mighty monosyllabic efforts, the pain was far worse than he had warned. Describing the pain is difficult, I can only liken it to the imagined pain of losing every finger nail. A slow and lengthy peeling of the nail from its roots. A tender torture. It was miserable and I was not happy. For 2 days I lived off liquified everything.

I began to question whether I had made the right decision....

In the "DRIVING SEAT".

Yesterday started exactly how I didn't want it to.

I awoke to a text from a friend who often enjoys inappropriate humour:

"Morning hot stuff.. I got my rail card through this morning, I can't wait for my train to board those tracks"

Actually this made me laugh. Quite a lot. Although, clearly I would never admit this to him.

I was all set for a pretty relaxed morning, with my appointment being at 10.40am. Unfortunately a last minute unforseen circumstance meant that my usual dental partner, mum, couldn't make it. Instead, stepping up to the mark was my 19 year old monosyllabic brother. At approximately 9.55am I found myself guilt tripping him into waking up so that he could "reassure me" en route. Blatantly, this wasn't what I had in mind and I wished my mum was there to gently stroke my cheek or something.

I quickly grabbed my appointment card before me and Monosyll jumped in my car. (driving myself to death was also something I had not planned). It was then I noticed that the appointment time was in fact 10.20am..NOT 10.40am. Naturally, this stressed me out quite a lot. As did the 15mph tractor I crawled behind half the way. As did Monosyll's heavy breathing. And also the fact that my cheek remained unstroked.

Miraculously, I managed to get to Lidl car park on time (since I had to pay for my own petrol on such an important day, I refused to pay £1-a-minute parking as well). After Monosyll declared he needed to "catch up on some Zzz's" legged it to the hospital. Alone.

The orthodontist waiting room always fascinates me. A collection of people with firmly closed mouths. I found myself wondering what contraptions lay hidden behind their perfected pouts. The nurse called my name, as soon as I opened my mouth to answer her... my teeth became very self concious as the many eyeballs glared at them.

As I shuffled into my execution room, I set eyes upon the toothy-unsympathetic-dwarf that is my orthodontist. After peering over his specs and looking me up and down. Twice. (something I considered unproffessional) he said:

"C'mon, jump on into the DRIVING SEAT!"

I then.. literally ..'jumped' into the 'driving seat'. I kid you not. Actually, it was probably more of a leap. Along with a "YIPPEEE!" As I lay, a crooked vulnerable prey, in the 'driving seat' that leap and my "YIPPEEE!" resonated in my head.. again and again. I cringed the whole way throughout the brace-procedure.

As I lay, with the "YIPPEEE!" still echoing inside me, I imagined what it would be like if my orthodontist was fit. As soon as I had began to mentally rehearse my sexy, seductive slither into the 'driving seat' along with a "Yes Sir" instead of the high-pitched "YIPPEEE!". Short-man spoke.

Again, I found myself lost in his ivories. My eyelids became heavy as he began to sing. The hypnoticism didn't last long this time. It was rudely interrupted with..

"Ok, thats all the very important stuff covered. Any questions?"

"Ummm, no.. I think I got it all, thank you"

I hadn't got anything but a mouth full of brace. As I shuffled through the waiting room, my braced teeth began to feel self-concious again.

I legged it back to Lidl car park. I tried to see my reflection in car windows, manically grinning and very slowly running my tongue along my brace. It only became apparent to me that this was weird behaviour when I realised one of the cars had some young kids in the back seat. Not only weird behaviour but unintentionally peadophilic?

Monosyll was fast asleep. I felt unfair waking him up. But, of course, I did anyway. He made a combination of deep grunts which I could only assume meant he wanted to see my brace. I aprehensively smiled.

"Ah. Yeah. S'alright." He sighed, rolled over and then fell back asleep.

The morning certainly did not go how I had meticulously planned. But, actually, I don't think it was a bad thing.

I drove home, positive, pleasantly surprised and EMBRACED.

Eve.

I start a "new chapter" tomorrow morning at 10.40am. An intimidating prospect and one which I have not over-thought or over-dramatised in the slightest...

I AM GETTING A BRACE TOMORROW.

MY LIFE ENDS TONIGHT!!!!!

RIP ME 03/10/2011

Almost 23 years old... A good degree in Psychology... Growing confidence, a little vanity. A set of beautiful shiny friends. A self concious smile... a perfected pout. Tooth ache. Dentist. Whispers. BRACES. BRACES. BRACES. BRACES.

The shocking verdict was revealed to me by my Orthodontist; a long term sufferer of acute short-man syndrome, that I did not find a) cute or b) at all reassuring. Why is it that when an orthodontist opens his mouth, you become sort of entranced and mesmerised by personified teeth perfection? His words became a hypnotic lullaby. A real life advert. In fact, I swear at one point I caught my crooked reflection in his cocaine-white canine. TING.

Unfortunately, my predicament is owed to my "disfunctional" cross bite. Fortunately, the fact it is worsening means that my perfectly-gnashered-incisor of an orthodontist accepted me on the NHS. Essentially, saving me a small fortune (around £3,500)... but even more essentially, the looming and unexpected transformation into UGLY BETTY.

For the past 3 and a half months I have had to wear a removal brace, (also known as a palatal exapnder). A big hard lump of plastic which has a screw to turn. It takes up about 5/8th's of your mouth. Removable is great. speaking/eating/swallowing is not. Initially, I found the brace impossible. Coming to terms with, and the subsequent dealings of, excess salivation was particularly tough.

Speaking was another achievement altogether. My tongue suddenly became 8 sizes too big for my mouth. My "speech" consisted of various wagglings of tongue whilst making some vague-vowel type noise.

My expression on my poor Mother's face when I tried to ask her a question was both hysterical and devastating. My tongue waggled. She would close one eye, screw up her face, tilt her head to one side, staring - open mouthed- at my open mouth. Then she would dare answer yes or no to a question she was afraid to admit she HADNT A CLUE WHAT I WAS ASKING.

A few months later I have, begrudgingly, mastered this lump of plastic. It now acts as a geographic-location type tool. One simply listens and follows the faint noise of Darth Vader.. and there they will find me.

Despite my new humourous take on what I consider devastating news... tomorrow still remains a scary day.

Naturally, broaching the subject of the brace to my perfected pearly pals required deliberation. I tried two different ways;


number one: ridiculously cazsh (aka casual)


me: "oh please can you pass me the salt. oh, by the way.. I am getting braces!"
friend: "but your trousers stay up enough with a belt?"

number two: ridiculously dramatic (aka dramatic)

me: amongst sobs and splutters: "yeah... I have to get a br-br-    brace."

friend: "OH MY GOSH. like a metal face/neck brace?!!!?!!"

me: "er, no... for my teeth"

friend: "ohhhh, thats no biggie at all"

I have now found a happy medium which provides the appropriate level of sympathy without friends thinking I am terminally ill. Phewf.

So, I will be "EMBRACED" for about 12-18 months. After intial plans to ignore everyone and to enter my metaphorical chrysalis as of tomorrow (and after harvesting my bod and emerging a new smiley me etc etc...), I have now decided I want to remain sane and shall therefore try to be as normal as possible. I shall use this blog to share my emotions/embarrassments and hilarities along the way!

TOMORROW I WILL TAKE A LONG DEEP BREATH AND BRACE MYSELF.