I am missing five teeth, and I can’t stop talking about it. Whenever I have to play two truths and a lie: “I’m five foot seven, I’m part dead person, and I’m missing five teeth.” Whenever I have to say an interesting fact about myself: “I’m missing five teeth.” Whenever I’m asked how my week was: “I’m missing five teeth.” And before I got my dental implants I would open my mouth and show whoever I was talking to how my lower jaw looked like a horse’s, with a long, pink gap between my canines and molars. They would make a face, and I would smile.
I don’t remember when we found out my body had forgot a few teeth, but I imagine I was reclined in the big chair at the dentist, my curls pulled up into a sprout, and my mom had just come from next door where my baby sister was getting her teeth cleaned too, and Dr. Carpenter spun around on his stool and said, “she’s missing five of her adult bicuspids.” I imagine he pulled up the x-rays and showed my mom where the teeth buds weren’t. But I can’t imagine my mom’s reaction or what he said next. Did he say, “Thankfully, dental implants will be an option once she’s eighteen”? Did he say, “But think! She has three of eight”? All I know is I’ve always known I was missing teeth, like I’ve always known the sky is up and the ground is down. Like I’ve always known what teeth are.
My parents began saving immediately. Dental implants are expensive; they could have bought two brand-new Toyota Corollas instead of my teeth. They pre-paid the dentist when I first filled out the FAFSA, so it wouldn’t affect any financial aid offers. When I was younger, I took their sacrifice for granted–they are my parents, so they will do anything for me. But toward the end of my high school years, I convinced myself that the cost was a burden. I joked apologetically that I was the most expensive child. My mom always said, “Stop it. You need teeth and we’re happy to pay for them.”
I got the typical privileged American round of braces when I was eight, after my first six buck teeth grew in, and the second when I was fifteen. I was told not to wiggle my baby bicuspids at all costs, because that would make the root dissolve faster, and when a tooth root dissolves the bone around it dissolves too, and that bone is important for dental implants. So I protected the baby bicuspids like a book by a swimming pool. I didn’t trust my orthodontist because he often forgot, and reached into my mouth with his gloved fingers that smelled like car tires and wiggled them back and forth, saying, “why are these still in here?” I would wince and grunt until he removed his hand and I could explain–once again–that I’m missing five teeth. He would look at the assistant for confirmation and then say, “move up to a two and add dolphins,” and snap on a new pair of purple gloves as he headed to the next patient in the assembly line. The assistant would sit back down in her chair and raise the seat he had lowered and replace the braces wire.
By this time, I had three tooth doctors in my life: Dr. Carpenter, the dentist who I trust with my life; Dr. Orthodontist, who I shall not name; and Dr. Scanlon, the man who placed my implants and asked me every appointment if I wanted to go to dental school yet. Dr. Carpenter cared for my teeth; Dr. Orthodontist made them straight; and Dr. Scanlon gave me new ones.
They decided that before I got my second round of braces, my bicuspids should be shaved down, since baby bicuspids are larger than adult ones; Dr. Orthodontist needed the teeth to be the right size in order to make the space the right size. I was barely fifteen, and teeth shaving was my first real dental procedure. The hygienist escorted me to a new room in my dentist’s office, one I’d never been in before. There was a spit bowl next to the big chair. I wondered, what do they do in here where the suction hoses aren’t enough?
Dr. Carpenter gave me numbing shots while the hygienist nervously petted my arm and told me to “take deep breaths, honey, deep breaths.” I had gotten shots in my mouth before, but my eyes still watered behind the yellow sunglasses. The needle stung, and the novocaine burned.
“Can you feel anything?” Dr. Carpenter asked, and he poked my gum.
“Nar,” I said.
“Raise your left hand if you do, okay?” Dr. Carpenter picked up his drill and slid it back and forth on the sides of my teeth, pausing often to measure with a little ruler. The first two were fine, but when he got to the third I felt an intense cold pain in the middle of my tooth, like when I bite frozen fruit. I raised my hand, and he gave me another shot. But the next time, he ignored my wavering fingers. There was only so much he could do.
“You did an awesome job,” he said, and gave me a fist bump. “Your teeth will be a little sensitive, because we took some of the enamel off, okay? So we’re going to give you some special toothpaste that’ll help it feel better.”
I sat in the car with my mom. It was a lot to think about. I knew they were going to make my teeth smaller, but I hadn’t realized what that meant. He shaved off the protective coating. My teeth hurt, and they had hurt the whole time he was shaving them, and they would hurt every time I ate something hot or cold or sugary. I didn’t want to cry because I should be tough, it wasn’t a big deal, it shouldn’t be a big deal, I should be able to handle it like it was no big deal, but when my mom asked me how it went I could feel water on my eyelashes and I refused to talk.
By the next year I had turned it into a survival story. One of my classmates in eleventh grade English asked how long it usually took for novocaine to wear off–she had gotten a root canal earlier in the day and was worried that her mouth was still numb. “I had my teeth shaved,” I said, “They gave me six shots! And it was six hours before I could feel my chin again!”
“Why did you need a root canal?” Another girl asked.
I was disappointed. She should have said, “why did you need your teeth shaved?” In my opinion, missing teeth were more exciting than longboarding accidents.
A friend said my mouth looked like it was from Terminator.
No amount of willpower could keep the shaved baby bicuspids firm, however. Their roots did dissolve, and when I was seventeen Dr. Scanlon decided I would need bone grafting on my lower jaw. That’s why my other truth in two truths and a lie is, “I’m part dead person!” Because he put ground up cadaver bone in my mouth. Six to nine months later, my first November in college, we began the implants.
When Dr. Scanlon explained the process to me, drawing pictures on the paper that lined the tray holding his sterile picks and mirrors, I was surprised by the number of steps. First, a large screw is placed in the bone, like a tooth root, and the gum is sewn shut over it. The screw is not normal; it’s like a sheath, hollow, so different healing caps and crowns can be easily screwed into it. Over the next four to six months, the bone grows around the outer screw and holds it firm. Second, the gum is reopened and a healing cap is screwed in. Healing caps have tall round metal heads that look like bolts, so the gum can spend a few weeks adjusting to the idea that it will have a hole in it. A friend said my mouth looked like it was from Terminator with them in. Third, the healing cap is removed and a crown is screwed on. Ta-da!
My hands shook the day I went to get my implants. I had told all my friends and relatives what was going on, and they had encouraged me: “My friend’s cousin’s husband got a dental implant too. His mouth kept rejecting it so they had to re-do it seven times, and then they gave up.” And I said, “but I’m missing five teeth!” I thought about this as I washed my hands in the dark patient bathroom.
The assistant, a redheaded, purposeful looking woman named Brandy, called my mom and me back to an office, where my mom signed a form allowing the surgery to take place, and Brandy gave me a pamphlet telling me not to eat anything hard for at least a week. Then I was taken to a cold room that looked just like the dentist’s, but with fancy drills and screws and guides laid out on the counter. I had to put on a blue paper cap and sunglasses and a bib that went down to my knees.
Soon another assistant came in, carrying a large needle. “Pinch!” she said as she slid it into my cheek, “ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch I know it hurts it’s almost over, okay, deep breath, pinch! Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch,” and if Brandy hadn’t been massaging my arm I would have stuck it in Ouch Lady’s mouth.
When Dr. Scanlon came in, he gave me more shots, but he said that I was a special case they had all been talking about, and he had made a guide to help him place the implants. Then he poked my mouth and asked, “can you feel that?”
“Nar.”
As he peeled back my gums and drilled holes in the bone beneath, he told me jokes: “What did the fish say when it swam into a wall? Dam.” He also asked me how school was going and what my major was, but I couldn’t answer.
Every time he finished a hole, he would stick a rod inside and take an x-ray to make sure it was perfect. It always was, so he would put the screw in and take another x-ray. Then he would ask, “How’re you doing?” And I would say, “Goog.” Despite the shots he kept giving me, I could feel the drill, and the muscles in my face burned from holding my mouth open. But I didn’t care.
It took about an hour to place the four bottom screws. Then he tied my gums back together with a long bloody string that I would swallow in about two weeks, maybe less.
“You did awesome,” he said. “I can’t give you any more novocaine, so we’ll do the last implant at the same time as your healing caps.”
Brandy gave me a bag with applesauce, and Kraft mac & cheese, and gauze to bite on in case I started bleeding, and prescriptions for extra strength ibuprofen and antibiotics and medical grade mouthwash. She also gave me two little ice packs, wrapped in public bathroom paper towels.
For five days after, I looked like Alvin the Chipmunk, except my jaw throbbed. Brandy told me some people go back to work the same day as their surgery, but I decided those people didn’t get four implants at once. I iced my face so steadfastly I ran out of ice packs that weren’t thawed and had to use bags of frozen peas and corn instead. On the fourth day, per Brandy’s recommendation, I switched to “moist heat,” microwaving a wet washcloth in the community kitchen in my dorm and holding it to my face. I hoped someone would see me, and ask. Nobody did.
Right before Thanksgiving, my body decided it didn’t like one of the screws, so Dr. Scanlon put me on another round of antibiotics. My body didn’t like the antibiotics either, and after he removed the problematic implant, my stomach removed the problematic dining hall food. But whenever my friends asked why I wasn’t eating with them, I said, “I can’t, I just got dental implants,” instead of, “the food makes me sick.”
Thankfully, the rest of the process went smoothly. I got my first healing caps and my upper implant in February, and my last implant in April. Dr. Carpenter attached my crowns at the end of August. Now I have a full set of teeth, and can chew whatever I please.
I would like to say I have matured, and no longer feel compelled to proclaim my tooth saga to the world. But if I had, this essay would not exist. I think I want to feel unique and interesting, and though everyone I’ve met has a friend’s cousin’s husband who was missing a tooth, it’s rare enough to make me feel special, and though they were minor surgeries, they were hard enough to make me feel tough.
Tough is the key. I dramatize the details, like how I got six implants instead of five, and how I once got a version of dry socket when my stitches came out early. And they say, “Wow,” and see me as a tough person, but more importantly I see me as a tough person. I tell people for my sake, not theirs, because they affirm what I want to believe about myself: I can handle anything, and that’s amazing.
And I want to believe that it’s not all in my head. Last week, Dr. Carpenter pulled my wisdom teeth, and the next day I went back to class, even though I could barely talk and was woozy from the amount of tylenol and ibuprofen I was consuming.
“I gut my wisdom teef out yesterday,” I told a friend.
“Oh my gosh how are you here?” She asked.
“Well, it washn’t bad,” I said, “I only had two, and they didn’t even put me unconscious.”
“What?”
“They gave me inshomnia medicine to make me sleepy, but it didn’t work, so they tried to put me on laughing gas but I wasn’t nervous so I shaid, ‘I’m fine.’” And I smiled inside, though not outside since my swollen cheeks were frozen in place.
“Are you in pain?” One of my professors asked the next day, and I nodded, “Oh yeah.”
“You sure you don’t want to go home?”
“Well, I could hurt at home, or I could hurt here, so I might as well come to class.”
“You’re such a trooper,” he said.
Ellen Sheehy 