When Your Worst Fear Comes True

My worst fear is about to come true.  No, not the one where I am eaten alive by a great white shark, or the one where I have to base jump off a large building or the one where I have to give a speech in front of a thousand people and once on the podium I realize I forgot my speech.  No, this is so much worse than that and it sends petrified shivers down my spine and makes me want to scream crying “Why me?  WHY ME?!”  You see, after thirty something years of flawless dental care, having never had a single cavity and after 16 months of orthodontic hell, this week I learned that I need to get a fucking root canal.  And I am terrified!

I have always been proud of myself for my very exemplary dental care.  I brush my teeth two to three times a day, floss more frequently than a crack whore gets laid and have my teeth professionally cleaned every three to six months.  The reason I think I have been so meticulous in caring for my teeth is the fact that, deep down, I am scared of dentists.  Ever since I can remember the weird sounds echoing from the dentist chair into the waiting area had me breaking out in a cold sweat, had me clenching my fists so hard that my knuckles went white and caused me to develop a weird facial tick every time I walk through a dentist’s door.  The sound of drilling gives me nightmares and I have always vowed that I would never ever have a cavity or any dental issue that require the dentist to drill holes into any of my teeth.  But alas you don’t always get what you want and sometimes nightmares come true.  Life is a bitch like that.

Last week after my braces came off my orthodontist (Dr Antoinette du Toit) checked my teeth.  After the cement was removed and some of my teeth were reshaped it appeared as if some of my teeth got damaged and needed to be fixed.  She also noticed that I had four teeth that were about to form cavities and she referred me to her daughter, who is a dentist, to get fillings for those identified teeth as a proactive and preemptive fuck you to tooth decay.  Having never had a cavity in my life (I do feel that I cannot emphasize this enough) I was understandably nervous to get fillings.  I knew that there would be drilling involved and I needed to prepare myself mentally.  So I did what any self-respecting homosexual would do – I took a tranquilizer before my appointment.

Arriving at Dr Roos’s practice (I have threatened that I would blog about her so she can’t fuck anything up) the receptionist could tell that I was nervous as all hell.  I was trembling like a caffeine addict at a decaf convention.  After scribbling down some of my details in my rather illegible handwriting I was ushered into the exam room, sat down on the chair and possibly told Dr Roos ten times that I was nervous.  So she looked at me and said “Everybody hates dentists and everybody is nervous, so don’t worry about it I won’t hurt you”.  This was then affirmed by her assistant and I was promised that I wouldn’t feel a thing.  I didn’t believe either of them and I was wondering whether they had any restraining straps hidden in the room somewhere because I was convinced that they may have to tie me down at some point.

Before the dentist started she explained to me, like I was a six year old, exactly what she was about to do.  I found it comforting and in situations like this talking to me like I am a toddler is weirdly appropriate, mainly because I was milliseconds away from running away and behaving like an emotionally disturb child who just saw Satan.  After I calmed down she started.  I was injected numerous times with anesthetic and my whole upper lip right to the tip of my nose was numb.  She repaired some teeth that was identified and did two filling and an hour later it was all done and I did not feel a thing exactly as she had promised.  Then she said “We need to talk about that one lower tooth”.  Knowing that something wasn’t quite right with it I tried to avoid the conversation completely, much like one would avoid telling your parents about when and how you lost your virginity.

But my avoidance skills and talent for sailing down the river of denial was no match for the dentist and she skillfully forced me to accept what she was saying.  That tooth is busy dying and I needed a root canal.  Apparently a root canal is done over two sessions of an hour each.  They drill into your tooth and then scrape out the nerve.  Not exactly a walk in the park or a fun visit to the petting zoo now is it?  My first reaction was to scream in my head “Motherfucking son of a bitch! Why me?! Why now?!”  After avoidance failed I went to my second defense mechanism and tried to negotiate my way out of the root canal.  But the more I tried the deeper I was drilling myself into that bloody hole of that root canal.  In the end I had to agree and I am getting the root canal next week.

Driving away from the dentist I cried.  Actually I sobbed.  I drooled too because my upper lip was still numb and just hanging there ignoring all instructions given to it from my brain.  That evening when I got home I wrapped myself in a blanket of self pity and resorted to annoy my husband to the point of him almost going crazy.  He could not understand what the big deal was and I explained why it was a big fucking deal until I was satisfied that he understood.  In reality he didn’t understand and still doesn’t.  People on Facebook also tried to better the situation.  Some said it’s painless and that I have nothing to worry about and other people said it hurt worse than child birth.  I don’t know who to believe and I guess I will have to find out for myself.

I am looking forward to this root canal as much as a death row convict is looking forward to the electric chair.  My worst fear is being realized and there is nothing I can do to stop it from happening.  If I don’t have it done the consequences could be far worse and could lead to far more horrifying problems.  So I guess I will take some prescription tranquilizers before my root canal and try and find out if my dentist has some Nitrous Oxide because I will fucking need both!  It just goes to show, no matter how well you look after your pearly whites anyone can get a cavity and some of us assholes will end up getting a root canal.  Fuck!

Till next time.

Free at Last. I am Free at Last! Well, Almost.

The end is nigh.  For my braces that is!  After sixteen months of unadulterated torment the medieval torture devices from hell will be ripped out of my mouth ending a phase in my life that I will not look back on fondly.  It all started last year when I learned with great distress that I was experiencing an “orthodontic relapse”: A fancy medical/dental term meaning “your teeth are being bitches and started to move again”.  For someone who has never had a cavity in my life, visits the dentist 3 times a year for checkups and teeth cleaning, brushes religiously and flosses as if my life depends on it, the prospect of having to get braces again, and all that goes along with it, terrified me.  With only a few days until I will be braces free, I decided to reflect back on some of the high lights and low lights of my orthodontic experience.

Ever heard of Inter-dental scraping?  No?  It’s the process by which the orthodontist (or her assistant) takes a micro file and scrapes between your teeth to make space or to aesthetically correct the shape of your teeth.  This is one of the procedures I had to endure on 5 separate occasions and had me squirming on the dentist chair, replicating an epileptic seizure while drenched in sweat and experiencing a cataclysmic collision of nerve endings in my head due to being physically grossed out by the sensation of having my teeth filed/sanded down.  It’s barbaric.  It’s unpleasant.  It’s something I hope to God I would never ever have to go through again for as long as I life.  I am convinced that I now suffer from a mild case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of it.  Every time I see a nail file or sandpaper (which is surprisingly often) I experience I mild panic attack and have to resist the urge to cover my mouth and scream into my sweaty hands.

For the most part I managed to cope relatively well with the braces and not once, during the last sixteen months, did I break any of the wires or brackets.  Something that my orthodontist told me eight months ago is quite a feat.  However, I think it is important to add here that during that same consultation she also told me that the factory which manufactures my porcelain brackets was destroyed during the earthquake in Japan.  Consequently, if I were to break any of the porcelain brackets they would have to be replaced with the normal metal ones and that would have looked “peculiar” aka fucking UGLY!  Needless to say since she shared that little nuclear charged piece of information with me I lived in a constant state of fear of breaking my porcelain brackets which dramatically changing my eating habits.  This leads me to my next orthodontic challenge – food.

As anyone who has ever had braces will tell you, eating is a problem!  The first couple of months the natural human act of eating become a mathematical and sometimes geometric challenge.  But after a couple of faux pas (i.e. attending meetings with food stuck in my braces or going through customs at the airport in a foreign country with a salad leaf dangling off my front tooth) I learned to manage.  At this stage I can eat pretty much anything provided I have a knife and fork, and it’s all very civilized.  The only thing that still tends to rankle my tits is when food gets lodged in parts of my braces that not even the Holy Ghost can reach never mind dislodge.  And a day later it decides to come loose and you have the unpleasant surprise of re-tasting yesterday’s breakfast.  All though food is major part of braces hell the other more noticeable drawback is how it affects your speech.

You see, with braces I almost had to learn to talk again.  The constant obstacle course of wires and pointy metal and porcelain hurdles in your mouth requires some getting used to and it, at times, makes talking a intricate balancing act of trying to sound normal and accepting you sound like a freak.  Many a time I have heard myself either sounding drunk or talking with a slur (usually after my braces got adjusted) or sounding mentally retarded.  Usually this artificial speech impediment is at its worst when you are speaking to important people or when taking phone calls from people who only have your voice as reference to draw an opinion of you.  I simply cannot wait to again be able to talk like a normal person and to be able to move on from sounding like the drunken stuttering bionic mouth man and to be able to annunciate.  I remember being able to annunciate and I fucking miss it! Having your lips or mouth cheeks caught on your wires while speaking to strangers not only make you sound stupid but makes you look ridiculous too.  And I will not miss any of it!

The one thing I have missed the most during the last sixteen months is flossing.  Sure they make special dental floss for people with braces but you need a PhD to be able to use it and the patience of a Ninja.  I found myself many an evening on the bathroom floor crying like an emotionally disturb child with dental floss hanging from my mouth.  I also had to cut myself free from this “special” dental floss with a pair of scissors which is not only degrading and dangerous but also frightening as hell.  There is nothing scarier than the irrational realization that you may have inadvertently permanently entangled dental floss in your braces and, that the possibility exists that the fire department might have to pry the braces off your teeth with the Jaws of Life or you may joke to death in your sleep.  Yes, these are things that go through your mind in these types of orthodontic crises.  Not only do you feel terribly ashamed and scared but you also tend to momentarily lose your mind.  This happened often.

Sure, looking back at the last sixteen months of my orthodontic experience I cannot find any high lights only low lights which are plentiful.  The only high light I imagine will be once the braces come off and I am free at last.  I also did not lose all those weight I imagined I would and which I firmly convinced myself would be the upside of having braces.  I have learned that it is a lie you tell yourself and then tend to spread by telling other potential orthodontic victims.  But in the end, I guess, the last sixteen months’ suffering was not in vain.  My teeth have been restored to their former symmetrical splendor.  My dental health has never been better and in a couple of days I will be able to floss again without having the fire department’s number on speed dial.  My orthodontic nightmare is almost over and I am counting the minutes to my freedom.  My freedom and perfect teeth, that is!

Till next time.

I Am Ugly Betty

This whole Ugly Betty adult braces thing is seriously cramping my style. It’s been a couple months since these god awful contraptions have been affixed to my wayward teeth and not a day goes by without me cursing them to hell. Earlier today I managed to spill a soft drink all over my cute outfit and had to spend the rest of the day walking around in my stain soaked and now not so delightful fashion statement. Then over lunch time a piece of food got stuck in my braces that I, as of yet, still have not been able to dislodge. Rather glum and reflecting back on my day I can’t help but be reminded why I hate my adult braces.

Having had my braces now for seven months, one would think that I would be quite use to them by now. Well, one would think wrong! I do not think you ever quite get use to wires and brackets in your mouth that’s systematically moving your teeth and grating away the insides of your mouth. You also never quite get use to food that’s forever lodged in between your teeth concealed by metal in impossible angels that not even the best contortionist with the most modern of orthodontic tools would be able to dislodge. You also never quite get use to the idea of speaking with a lisp that you never had before.  A lisp that you now have because foreign objects in your mouth are preventing you from enunciating your words properly. You also never quite get use to having your lips caught in your wires during important meetings and then desperately trying to discreetly extricate them without causing yourself significant embarrassment. No, seven months on and I am NOT used to my braces.  But the day-to-day gripe of having adult braces being as bad as it is, it is only surpassed by one thing - those damn orthodontist visits.

For some inexplicable reason I always seem to suffer some injury, ailment or embarrassment just prior to my appointments. During the last seven months I had surgery, an eye infection, had a nose injury and accidentally poisoned myself, all just days prior to my orthodontist appointments. Needless to say pitching up for my appointments with some disfiguring injury and/or ailment must have had my orthodontist and her assistants seriously wondering what I do for a living and whether my job is dangerous. But being the consummate professionals they are, they have never once asked me and I have never volunteered any explanations. Injuries and ailments aside the visits to the orthodontist are unpleasant in itself and for those of you who dislikes dentists I recommend you skip the following paragraph.

Have you ever heard of inter-dental scrapping? No? Well then let me explain. In the past several months I had the misfortune of experiencing that nasty procedure three times. Three times! It is a procedure where the orthodontist assistant takes a very small file like gadget and pushes it in between your teeth and then pulls it out again, repeating this action several times. Apparently this is done in order to help make space in between your teeth and help them to move faster. Essentially they are filing down your teeth and it is barbaric! This first time it was done to me I was caught completely off guard and was too traumatized to resist. The second time I tried to negotiate with the assistant not to do it, but she did it anyway. And the last time I almost resorted to physical violence, much like a cat not wanting a bath, but the bitch was strong and she pinned me down with her elbow, leaving me squirming in the chair like I was having an epileptic fit.

Apart from being tortured every six weeks by having inter-dental-scrapings and having my braces adjusted (which hurts like a mother fucker), nature also decided to through a spanner into the works. From the onset I decided to get porcelain braces as they are less noticeable but unfortunately much more expensive than regular braces. They are manufactured in Japan. Yes Japan, you know that place which had that bad ass earthquake. That Japan! And the earthquake completely destroyed the factory that manufactures my braces and they currently cannot be found anywhere else in world. The factory is now being rebuild but this time in the United States and in the mean time if I break anyone of my little porcelain devil brackets I am screwed. Do you know what kind of stress that causes? Every time I bite something and I feel something crack, I shit myself a little and pray it was not a porcelain bracket. Imagine, I whole top row of teeth with porcelain brackets and then on your top front tooth a regular one. Gawd! I am not biting into anything hard until I get conformation there are at least four or five spare brackets in a volt somewhere for me in case of an emergency. It can even be taken off a dead man I don’t care.

I have by my orthodontist’s calculations another ten months left of suffering adult braces. Damn you orthodontic relapse! Damn you! Seven months on I won’t lie; I have seen some major improvement towards getting that perfect smile back again. The braces are doing their thing and I guess it will all be worth the pain, embarrassment, drama and unpleasantness in the end. However, the end cannot come soon enough! So until then I will be Ugly Betty, lisping and drooling my way through life until I am free from these damn braces.

Till next time.

Medieval Torture from Hell

It has been a month since I had the medieval slow torture wires from hell, also known as adult braces, fastened to my very sensitive and now wallowing in self pity teeth. Having had braces when I was a child, I assumed I knew what I was in for, but the human mind can be one deceptive devious bitch. Like natural child birth for women their minds supposedly let them forget the pain and trauma of pushing a watermelon through something the size of a lemon, therefore allowing them to go through the same torture again; getting adult braces seems to be rather similar. You selectively remember some discomfort but it is not until your mouth is filled with wires and jagged edged metal pieces that the true reality sinks in. This is what I have been dealing with the last four weeks and still have to endure for the following 13 months.

Having adult braces is not a fashion statement! Even though I opted to get the porcelain braces that are less conspicuous there’s no way of really hiding the fact that you have a metal mouth. Firstly, the first couple of weeks I was practically classified as disabled. I had to learn to speak again and sounded like I was drunk or retarded every time I opened my mouth. I couldn’t really eat anything solid because I was in pain and only had 4 available teeth with which to chew. I also lost the ability to smile, because every time I did my braces would scratch my inner lips and/or my lips would get caught on my braces. This not only caused a fair amount of pain, but also left me looking like some kind of psychotic serial killer showing people the teeth I was going to use to cannibalize them with combined with a forced frozen uncomfortable unflattering smile.

But having adult braces isn’t all bad. The inability to eat and chew your food properly is the best diet I have ever been on. I have lost at least 5 kilograms to date and baby food is starting to look and sound really scrumptious! There have been times that I was absolutely famished, had strange noises bellowing from my stomach and forced myself to sit down and at least try to finish a whole plate of food. I have only managed to do that once. Eating takes me ten times longer than usual, chewing has become a skill I had to master with some effort and some days half way through my meal I just give up – eating should not require such a tremendous amount of concentration and dental agility. And then there’s the downside.

Combine braces with food and inevitably you end up with embarrassment. Just last week I mastered the skill of actually eating a hot dog. Yes people if you have braces certain foods require “techniques” to eat and Oh Boy it ain’t pretty. I managed to eat a whole hot dog which took me twenty one minutes and thirty five seconds (I timed it!). Washed it down with a Coke, and then rinsed my mouth out with sparkling mineral water. I then left to attend a meeting. The meeting itself was quite taxing and after leaving it, for some unbeknown reason, I decided to check my teeth in my car’s rear view mirror. Lo and behold, half of the hot dog was firmly lodged in my braces and on my front teeth none the less. I spent 90 minutes talking to people trying to be all professional and such with food stuck in my wires. God only knows what they must have been thinking! But none of the bitches said a damn thing, although I think they had quite a good chuckle after I left!

As you can now clearly see food is a major issue in my life right now. I am constantly hungry craving thinks I am not allowed to eat. If I can’t suck it, swallow it whole or if a morsel needs more than 5 minutes of careful chewing I don’t touch it. But there is an upside. One meal can last you a full day. Even though I do my best with a wide range of specially designed gadgets to dislodge my breakfast, lunch and dinners from my food magnets there will always be a couple of pieces strategically hidden that dislodges during the course of the day. This in turn conveniently allows you to have a taste of your previous meals at the most inconvenient of times. It’s like cows regurgitating their food only I’m not a damn cow. And then there’s the dental hygiene issue.

My dental hygiene routine has become super complicated. What took me five minutes twice a day now takes me 30 minutes and that’s why I have been late for work so frequently. I refuse to get up 25 minutes earlier because of it. Being a smoker (yes, I have not quite yet) I may be prone to gum infections due to my railway tracks in my mouth. So now I not only brush my teeth from all 1000 angles I also have to brush my gums, rinse my mouth with a special mouth wash and try to floss. We wired and tortured folk have a special type of floss. It’s 20cm long, consists out of three parts and using it requires dexterous fingers, extra mirrors and a shit loud of patience. Flossing will add an additional hour to your routine and that’s only when you become quite good at it. This past weekend, when I had some time to burn, I tried it. After an hour I only managed to floss four teeth, got the floss stuck in three of my braces and ended up crying on the bathroom floor like an emotionally disturbed child covered in my own spit and a little bit of blood. I have not flossed since!

Braces have changed my life, my diet and some days it negatively affects my mood. I dream about steaks, eating out in restaurants, get nightmares about restaurants, obsessively check my teeth before meeting meetings and day dream about taking pliers and removing them. I have only 13 more months of this to go, and 13 months can be a very long time. I keep on reminding myself that it will be all worth it in the end, but when faced with my arch nemesis which is the flossing kit I am not so sure I am going to make it!

Till next time.

Sherry Vine's Parody You're a Home

Horrific News

This week I heard the three words I hoped never to hear again. They bring back painful memories both literally and figuratively. Memories of embarrassment, inability to eat certain foods, one week in every six weeks of physical pain, wax, chapped lips and having to accessorize my fag bag with toothpicks, a tooth brush and toothpaste. This week I was told “You need braces” again and I almost died! I had braces before and never thought I’d see the day that I had to go back to that, but alas I have no choice.

You see this week I went for my regular teeth cleaning and checkup at the Dentist. Admittedly the Dentist is not my most favorite medical practitioner to see, hence my obsession with my dental health. I have never had a cavity in my whole life and I never plan to experience the horror of being inflicted on a root canel. To avoid the dental drill I brush my teeth twice, sometimes more, a day and floss and do everything I can to keep my gums and teeth healthy. So with this week’s visit I wasn’t expecting any bad news or nasty surprises and that is the thing with optimism and expectations - neither have ever served me well.

Towards the end of what was a rather uncomfortable teeth cleaning session my Dentist, the genius that he is, decided to compare my current X-Rays with that of my previous visits and discovered something ominous. He doubled check the X-Rays and with an alarmed expression checked my mouth and said “I don’t think you are going to like what I am about to tell you” and he was right I didn’t and I proceeded to throw a hissy fit and almost broke down crying. “Braces! Really?! I’m turning 34 this year I can’t be wearing no God Damn BRACES!” are just a few boorish things that flew out of my mouth. After I dropped a few more F-bombs, he managed to calm me down.

“It’s not that bad” he said “There are many adults that get braces these days, it’s almost fashionable”. Yea right, braces at my age is hardly a fashion statement and besides that they will clash with all my outfits! Apparently I am experiencing what they call an “Orthodontic Relapse”, which is just a nice way of saying you are fucked for two years and if you’re single you will stay that way!  There was no good news that day, my teeth are moving again and they will not stop by themselves and, whether I liked it or not, if I ever want to smile again on a photo I would have to get fucking braces.

Quite depressed I arrived home and started to Google braces. These days you get invisible ones that you can remove for eating and for other things that requires an unoccupied mouth, but they are expensive and knowing myself I’d probably not wear them 80% of the time which defies their purpose. You also get porcelain ones that are less noticeable and could be a more viable solution. However, they break easily and due to their fragility could increase your braces hell by double. So the most viable option is the standard metal mouth braces which one can brighten up with colorful rubber bands giving you a pretty scary rainbow smile – come on let us all jump with joy!

I’m still depressed and is looking forward to my first appointment at the Orthodontist on 3 February at 2:30pm with the contempt and enthusiasm it deserves. I’ll be 36 when my braces come off, that’s four years from 40! For the next two years I’ll be getting my braces adjusted next to 13 year old kids, be eating corn on the cob with a knife and fork, not be able to smile after eating lunch or dinner because there will be food that needs to be dislodged and my personal favorite - I’ll be setting off metal detectors at airports. All fabulous things I have to look forward too. The only upside to this is the fact that I will definitely lose weight.

As one of my more favorite medical practitioners was injecting my annual Botox touch-ups, she said something that made sense. Vanity comes with a price, a fair share of pain and a whole lot of sacrifice. Our metamorphosis of what we want to be on the inside and outside is never complete and there are always some things we would want to change. Some things are by choice and others are not and peace should be made with that. I choose not have the ability to frown as it’s highly overrated but I don’t have a choice about the braces. With just over a week before my reunion with the Orthodontic industry I will make a concerted effort to make peace with the impending fact that I will be getting braces. Fucking braces!

Till next time.

Tommy Ryman at the Joke Joint