I had my final — really final — appointment last week. It was the “three month follow-up” to make sure my retainers were doing the job and my teeth were in fact still firmly in place. As usual, Doc was more interested in discussing my personal life than my oral situation:

“So how are you?” he asked.

“You mean how are my teeth?”

“No, I mean YOU — how’s life? What’s going on with you?”

Then he fished for details, asked if my boyfriend liked my teeth, then interrupted himself and asked if I’ve gotten another boyfriend. “He liked my teeth back when they were crooked, and he likes them now,” I sneered.

We were back to business after that. Doc cautioned that, a few decades down the line I might require a gum graph over the formerly impacted canine (FIC), and suggested I request cadaver gums — to which I politely coughed, “Cadaver? Are you serious?” (He was really serious.)

If I never see a tooth professional again, it’ll be too soon. Human opinion on oral care varies so dramatically, and is always so intense, I really can’t take it seriously…not that I ever did. Nevertheless, I truly appreciate the stellar job this man and his team of attractive, young Brazilian assistants have done for my severely messed up smile — with no drugs, little pain, and lots of humor. Doc and I Shared a grand goodbye.

(Shaking my hand): “Well, it’s been a real pleasure having you as a patient,” he sighed.

“Thanks,” I said. What else is there to say?

“Don’t be a stranger.” (His words.) I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t plan on just popping in to shoot the breeze whenever I’m in the area, but you know, if we run into one another on the mean streets of Somerville, I will flash him a beautiful smile.

Which, might I add, is always in style.

Anyway, let’s get to the point: they’re off! RIP Braces: April 28, 2005 – March 20, 2008.

After a little crying, some bleeding gums, and drilling through five or six brackets because they were too sensitive to pop off, everything was over and I was fitted for clear plastic “forgiver” retainers, which I picked up today, and which also make me want to cry when I put them in.

The FIT canine had moved up into the gum a bit, so it’s not level with the left canine, but we decided to just let it be. Doc wanted to shave the edges of the front eye teeth to round out the sides and make them not so boxy, but I vetoed that measure. Why? Because my original teeth were boxy to begin with. Why ruin a good thing? Also, once he shaves them, that’s it. If I don’t like the result, I can’t get the old ones back. We made a deal that I could go back at any point if I change my mind. I’ll see him again in three months anyway, when they check to make sure my retainers are working out and the smile is still ok.

Doc blew me a kiss as he walked out of the office. Slightly inappropriate, but I appreciate the homage. It’s been a long 2 years 11 months.

Now, because people have asked, I am finally posting some pictures of the teeth’s progression.

DISCLAIMER ONE: these are gross, gross photos. Proceed at your own risk.
DISCLAIMER TWO: most were taken with either a phone camera or a webcam, so they’re not very clear. Sorry.

• April 29, 2005 (braces put on, two front teeth pulled)
• September 2005 (two more teeth pulled; impacted canine in gum exposed)
• December 2005
• June 2006 (impacted canine almost down)
• January 2006 (impacted canine down)
• August 2007 (front teeth shaved)
• March 20, 2008 (braces taken off)

(I skipped most of 2007 because that year was spent correcting my bite, so photos all looked the same.) They’re not perfect, but I can chew, the baby tooth is out, the crossbite is fixed, the impacted canine is down, and they generally look ok. THE END! Thank you for reading my ortho adventure. Email me (audubon at tapioca dot tv) if you’re in the Boston area and looking for a good orthodontist.

I bet you can guess. At long last, the metal is coming off….in TWO DAYS! This all came about as part of a discussion Doc & I had about my teeth this morning. He made me stare in the mirror and tell him all the things I thought were still “wrong”. Well, there’s this space in the gum where the FIC (Formerly Impacted Canine) begins. Doc said, well, that’s because the bone didn’t grow up there because it used to be impacted, you’ll just have to live with it.

Well, my upper right 2 FST (tooth next to the front tooth, aka Formerly Sideways Tooth) isn’t completely flush with the other teeth. Doc said, “Let’s shave the front of it to correct that,” and he did.

Well, the FIC on the upper right doesn’t exactly fit together with the bottom teeth, such that there’s kind of a space between the top and bottom when my teeth are together. Doc said, “You have two options: your bite is in the best position it’s been in, so we can stop being finicky and just decide to take the braces off, or I can attach a bone screw (yes, a screw that goes into the lower jawbone) so that you can wear an elastic from your upper canine and pull it down more, so there won’t be a space when you bite. We could do that today.”

No bone screw! Are you kidding? A BONE SCREW? No way! Fortunately Doc shared my concern that, even with a bone screw, it could still mess up the bite or the cant which could take another 4+ months to correct. We decided to break even and call the whole thing off.

I return the day after tomorrow to compromise and close the deal on this sorry adventure. Sure, the teeth won’t be perfect, but at least I won’t have sideways teeth and a greying baby tooth and a canine wedged up on the roof of my mouth, and I’ll be able to chew, and things will look *almost* perfect. Who wants to be exactly perfect, anyway?

So, our tale has almost come to a close. I’ll post some actual photos when it’s really over.

Doc looked at my front teeth and asked, cautiously, if I have any Asian ancestry. I said no, I’m Irish, as far as I know. He then went on to explain what a Chinese friend had told me years ago: upper front teeth that are curved in the back (often referred to as “shovel teeth”) are standard for people of Asian descent, but not European. Doc’s conclusion was that, being 100% Irish and having these curved teeth, I was descended from an isolated population (read: inbred). Doc himself is descended from (inbred) Pharaohs so, not to worry, he also has the same teeth.

Thanks to Google, I realized that these recessive Asian teeth were not a freak result of inbreeding from my proud Northern Irish ancestors, not that it matters either way, but rather that these ancestors were direct descendants of the Melungeons — a people from Central Asia who mixed with Africans, Middle Easterns and American Indians, settling largely in Appalachia. But they also passed through Ireland at one point, and my great-great-great-great whoever must have done some breeding because I seem to have inherited all the interesting, albeit irrelevant, traits.

Doc decided the curved backs of my two front teeth were messing up the bite, so he shaved them off. Then he shaved between my premolar on the left side to try and correct the bite on that side…as well as the front right FST (Formerly Sideways Tooth) to make it fit better against the front tooth…and now I’m wearing elastics from the top left canine to the bottom left molar. That’s my ortho update for this week.

I am Central Asian! Who knew?! And here I was, wearing four-leaf clover shirts. Moral: one belief system will always replace another until we outgrow them all.

“You were in my dream,” Doc said.
“Oh really?” I was not amused.
“Yeah, except I wasn’t sleeping…it was kind of like a daydream. I was just thinking, where’s Audubon?”

When Doc gets nervous about this long, exhaustive process, he starts faux hitting on me. In an anxious sort of way. In this Round 46, he wanted to shave my upper pre-molars because “they’re not pointy enough so they don’t fit together well with the bottom teeth.” Why didn’t he figure this out three years ago, or two years ago, or last month when he said I was almost entirely finished? My teeth and bite are still moving constantly, so I refused to let him shave off more of my teeth. I’m hoping that when I return in two weeks, he’ll agree that they don’t need to be shaved.

Now I’m wearing horrible elastics from the top right canine (Formerly Impacted Tooth) to the bottom left canine — that’s across the front of my mouth & tongue, if you’re following along — as well as a second elastic from the FIT canine down to the lower right canine. The intention is to adjust my midline back into a centered position, but I feel like it’s recreating the crossbite and only allowing my right molars to meet now, which means I can’t chew on the left side. It’s really horrible and uncomfortable. I know I’m going to come back in two weeks and Doc will do something entirely different, and then another two weeks will go by, and then another, and then it’ll be spring and then it’ll be summer and my bite will still be getting readjusted and I’ll still be wearing ugly elastics all up in my mouth….Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

In non-orthodontal adventures, did you know there is a NASA channel? I discovered it last night and it’s all I can watch now. Absolutely fascinating. And appropriate, since there’s a great lunar eclipse tonight.

The fingernail assistant from Round 41 worked on me, which was again rather horrible, not because her fingernails were digging into my gums, but because she kept hovering over me and sighing the type of sighs you heave when you’re really annoyed by adults with orthodontic problems and would rather be on the phone with your boyfriend. Then Doc announced I was “really almost done” and scheduled me to return in one week in the hopes of, perhaps, taking the things off.

Fortunately, I saw through his lies. Today was Round 45. They put me in a special room, thinking I was near the end. Nope. My bite is still messed up. Doc was in a bad mood, stressed out by various personnel problems and not quite as interested in my teeth as I’d hoped he’d be.

“My upper right molar is lower than the one on the left,” I kept whining. “You said you’d do something about it.”

He sighed. Much like the sighs of the young assistant with long fingernails. “Ok,” he said, and yanked something on the tooth that pushed it up immediately, delivering a wave of pain that ended abruptly and made me gasp. “There are multiple ways of making adjustments,” Doc said. “That’s one of them.”

He went on to have his other assistant (a lovely woman, very gentle and kind) put on latex chains across the upper and lower teeth, then changed his mind and had her remove them from my lower teeth. He then affixed a metal hook to my lower right molar, near the gumline, so I can wear (with extreme difficulty, might I add) an elastic from the inside lower right molar to the inside upper right molar. This will, supposedly, raise up the right side and even out my bite, finally. I’m scheduled to return in three weeks, well after his projected end date.

To compensate for the added pain and continuing delay, I bought pumpkin and spinach ravioli at the fresh pasta store which I plan to swallow whole tonight, since I haven’t been able to fully chew in weeks.

Do you even care about this? Some of you crooked-toothed adults do. It is for you that I write.

My teeth, I meant. Doc was hanging over me, looking concerned. He stared into my mouth a few moments before pronouncing his verdict, which no 29 year-old who’s spent 2.8 years at the orthodontist wants to hear:

“Hmm, I was hoping to see a finished case here, but I guess I was wrong.”

A really skilled female assistant switched the chain (chain gang of connected elastics, horrible) on the upper teeth, put a thinner wire on bottom and removed the bottom chain, slapped two elastics from my upper canines down to my lower canines and said, “Happy holidays!” All this without digging any fingernails into my gums. A wonderful present indeed.

Doc took a look and declared: “Looks good. Maybe next time you’ll be finished.”

Well, we’re entering 2008 under oral construction, but we can’t stop now. I can’t put my left molars together, so that’s a problem. The e-files on Doc’s computer still have my band date as 9-22-05, not 4-28-05. I want to go on record as having endured those five months! Those five months saw four oral surgeries and some major progress! When I reminded Doc (for the eighth time) that his records were not showing the correct treatment time, he shrugged, “Honey, your treatment time has gone waaaay too long.” I think he’s trying to save face by not updating my file to show the actual time that’s elapsed. How shady!

I better get free whitening from all of this.

“Two more months,” Doc said again. “No really, I mean it this time — your bite has been corrected, we’re just finishing up here.”

Let’s hope.

I felt pretty bad about my earlier tantrum, but apparently Doc felt bad too. “I was thinking about it,” he said, “and I just feel really bad. I know this has gone on a long time, much longer than projected, and you’ve been very patient.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’ve only had a few major outbursts.”

To make amends, he removed the horrible cement snowman from my bottom canine, removed an extra twisted wire from my top molar, removed a hook that had been cemented on back of the FIC for the past 9 months, and got rid of the latex bands. He also re-glued a brace onto my bottom tooth (rather, an assistant re-glued it, singing Elton John off-key in a Portuguese accent throughout the procedure, which was hilarious) and sent me packing with a heavy wire on top and a medium one on bottom. Everything was fine until about 18 hours later, when I was in P-A-I-N, but it was still that odd familiar oral discomfort that reminds you your teeth are inching ever so closer to perfection…which makes it a little more bearable.

Who knows…a few more months? Maybe I’ll have really straight white teeth to match the snow…