Brand New Day

Teef, teefy, teefers! And My Irrationality.

Ohai readers! Actually, I’m fairly sure you’ve all gone, and I truly don’t blame you at all. I have really had nothing at all interesting to tell you, which makes blogging very, very difficult indeed.  Anyway, let me thrill you with yet another story about my teeth. I shall endeavour to come back and be more interesting and more dedicated. But until I get a job and actually have a reason to get out of the house and be around people again, it might take me awhile to figure out any thrilling ways to entertain you about the boringness of my life!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this intensely irrational fear of losing my teeth. It’s one of those fears that creeps up on me and terrifies me into believing they’re all going to fall out of my head and I have been plagued by nightmares where my teeth just crumble and flake and fall out, and I’m spitting my teeth out into my hands. It’s really, really terrifying. I wake up in a cold sweat.

When I was 16 I think…maybe 15, a few friends and myself got drunk at one of their houses and then decided to go for a walk down to this park. The girl whose house it was decided that we’d take a shortcut through someone else’s property. This involved jumping down over quite a high wall.  I’m 5’2, so pretty much everything is very high. So we’re sitting on the edge of it, and a dog starts barking hardcore, so we jump, and one of my friends who is behind me, and much larger than I was fell on my back and smashed my face into the ground. Which was gravel. We get up and dust off, and I’m thinking “wtf is that warm shit dripping onto my hand?” I look down, and it’s blood. My teeth punctured my bottom lip and I am bleeding like you see in movies! It was terrifying! It didn’t even hurt.

Anyway, we walk to the hospital, because I lived in a very small town, and it wasn’t far…and they tell me it’s shredded, and there’s no way they’re going to be able to stitch it, so give me some tissues to staunch the bloodflow and send me on my way. Anyway…that little venture cracked my two front teeth, but they were fine, and I was terrified of the dentist, so I ignored it.  Then, my parents let me ride one of those little motor scooters so that they didn’t have to drive me around the place all the time.  I played a little  game one night of seeing how fast I could take the corners. You’re starting to see where I’m going with this, right?

I actually made it all the way home, where I screamed into our driveway and slammed on the brakes…on gravel. I lost control of the bike and skidded off. I was wearing a helmet which is lucky, because my head didn’t smash like an orange, but it wasn’t a full helmet and I cracked my teeth..again. This time, I did go to the dentist. He decided they needed root canals, and when he started drilling, I whimpered, and he said “Did you feel that?” And I..stupid girl, went “uh..uh huh?” I honestly don’t think I felt a thing, but I was so scared because he wouldn’t give me an injection. “Oh.” He says…”in that case, you’re fine!” And he filled the little hole he’d made and sent me on my way. Why was this stupid? Because by the time I actually went in to get them fixed, I was 23 and it came straight out of my stupid pocket.  And holy shit did it cost me an arm and a leg.  I asked the dentist who did it, if I’d ever be able to get braces, which had been my dream ever since I was 12 years old. ”No.” He said. “Your teeth will never be strong enough.” I was -devastated-. Truly.

I can’t tell you how badly I wanted them, and what a massive crushing blow this was. Anyway, years and years went by, and I hit thirty, and my grandmother had left the grandchildren money when she died. I had more than enough to make an appointment with the orthodontist and see for sure whether or not I could get braces. They told me yes, and promised me that braces moved so slowly that teeth which had root canals were never in any danger. So I went ahead and had them fitted. It took two teeth being pulled out to make room for the rest to move back. That was stressful, but it was fine. I wanted it done, and I was going to do whatever I needed to, to do it. I still had dreams where my teeth were all falling out…and even though my dentist had to keep pausing to shake out his hand and almost put his foot up on my chest to yank my teeth out..and told me in no uncertain terms just how strong my jawbone and teeth are, I still felt as though they were ready to crumble on me at any second.

Anyway, two years with braces left me with straight teeth, and a wire along the back of my teeth at the bottom. It’ll be there, probably forever. But somehow, it dislodged itself a couple of days ago, and then last night I had a look at it in the mirror, and when it moved, part of my tooth moved with it too. I was horrified! A whole big chip of my tooth had been taken off by this wire! It was my dream coming true in front of my very eyes. I showed Ollie, just to be sure and he freaked out and told me to stop touching it. So I rung the Orthodontist today, and they said no one could see me until Monday. Ollie got shitty and called them back demanding that I be seen because I couldn’t go all weekend with a broken tooth. They fit me in today. I spent the whole day so worked up and terrified that I barely managed to keep any food down, and all I could think about was how much it’d cost to be fixed, how broke we now are, the kids, the mortgage, my still not having a job and a dentistry bill hanging over my head.

3pm finally came around and in I went. “Oh, it has come loose.” She said, and went about yanking my face around and scraping glue off. “Are you sure that’s not part of my tooth?” I ask, not really wanting to know the answer. “Yep, just lots of glue.” She said, drilling the last of it off and regluing it back down again. I can’t even begin to express the huge amount of relief and foolishness I felt. She did say that sometimes the glue looks so much like teeth they have to test it, if it’s glue it turns grey and if it’s tooth it stays white. She said, that in the history of their practice, no one had lost any parts of their teeth. And I almost cried in both relief and embarrassment. I know that it fooled my husband and that I have a truly insane fear attached to my teeth breaking and falling out, but there is nothing in the world to stop you feeling like a stupid child when you’re ready to go in there and scream the practice down, only to realise that you have totally overreacted.