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Author Topic: Story - "Dark Teeth"  (Read 3453 times)

Offline GarotaFakeBR

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Story - "Dark Teeth"
« on: 17. June 2020, 23:18:17 PM »
Hi

I wrote this story about a year ago. I found it today and decided to post.
Here I'm telling Henry's braces story from his younger sister's point of view.

Again, sorry about my English.

I hope you like it.

:*
GarotaFakeBR
___________________________________

Dark Teeth

Hi, my name is Lilly. I was adopted in 1983 when I was three years old. Young enough not to remember many things except a doll, a tv and who I guess it was my biological mother and she had dark, smelly teeth.

I love my father, my mother, my sister Heather and my brother Henry, but I was afraid of him when his teeth became dark, that now I know, weren’t rotten as I thought (just smelled like rotten sometimes), he wore braces. Full bands and more wires behind and for a while in front of it, his braces made him speak funny.

Heather, my sister, wore braces before he did, but she could take it off and it was huge, not ugly and dark like Henry’s but anything she said she had to repeat. She didn’t have to wear fixed braces but for some time she wore a clear plastic thing with wires coming out of it, she said it was an activator. I wasn’t afraid of her with the headgear because she showed me that she could take it off, but it couldn’t be all the time so I had to get used to her with that thing.

I’m ten years younger than Henry and eight years younger than Heather. Henry didn’t use to play with me and I wasn’t very comfortable with him, I remember mom asking him to go brush his teeth and shower since he wasn’t exactly a neat and tidy person when he was a teenager. Heather was everything to me. She was tall, beautiful and really nice, just like my new mom. I loved to play with her, but when she was with her friends she didn’t like me very much, then, when Henry finally got his  “dark teeth” and it started spreading out of my brother’s mouth, he used to spend a long time at home, we became closer, but it took some time. This is his story he told me years later, and here I retell it along with some of my memories.

1- Henry

When I started being part of the family, Henry was 13 years old and I was 3, he didn’t know how to act around me so we didn’t spend much time together. He didn’t have dark teeth back then, but Heather, who was younger, used to wear an activator. About a year later, mom and dad went to an orthodontist in another city who agreed on seeing my brother. I remember it was in another city and mom had to drive for about an hour to take him to his appointment. She had to give Dr. Falcon a recommendation letter from Dr. Susan, explaining his case. Our way back home was noisy due to Henry’s tantrum, saying he was going to be too old and that he promised he would wear everything as directed by Dr. Susan but our parents said he had had his chance and now they knew he couldn't be trusted.

His treatment was supposed to be like Heather’s and it started a little more than a year before I became his sister, he was 11. He didn’t wear his activator at all, three months later, having no results, Dr. Susan gave him one with headgear because having to remove the straps to remove the activator it would be easier for him to comply, but he didn’t wear it either. Then she said the activators wouldn’t work with him and put on fixed brackets on his teeth.

He preferred the brackets than the activator, he said it wasn’t only brackets, there was some plastic covering his back teeth but six months after the brackets went on he was given a headgear to be worn all the time, taking off just for sports, eating and cleaning but he only wore it in front of our parents, or about two hours a day. In the next month, mom told the teachers he had to wear his headgear at school, on the first day wearing headgear to school he fought with a guy who was mocking him because of the contraption. He was the only kid wearing headgear, getting home, Henry used a plier he found in dad’s toolbox to bend the headgear and take some brackets off and mom had to run with him to the orthodontist to fix everything. Dr. Susan said he didn’t want to have his teeth fixed but she knew someone who might take his case and until the other orthodontist take on he would be braces free. A week after that mom and dad brought me home.

2- Double b-day

When I was 7 years old, Henry had his party on Sunday, a day before his 18th birthday. It was nice but only some of his friends came, albeit being a junior, he wasn’t exactly popular at school and he used to complain there was a boy who bullied him because of his big buck teeth. Well, his teeth were really ugly, he had some impacted teeth, top teeth were big, protruding and the front ones turned inwards. Actually, if you talked to him when he was laid on his bed, you could see a perfect V formed by his upper front teeth. Besides being big and crooked, they stuck out too much, forcing his lower lips, creating a deep crease above his chin, and when he talked he had a slight lisp caused by his buck teeth.

On Monday, he seemed nervous, it was finally his double b-day. Birthday and braces day. On his first appointment, more than three years ago, Dr. Falcon examined him and said there was a lot to work with but Henry was too young, and he only accepted problem cases when the subject was at least 18 years old, and not a spoiled brat as he was. Last month, Henry had to go to Dr. Susan to take impressions and X rays and he knew the time of having braces again has come, he was looking forward to it because the guy who bullied him was wearing braces, headgear, and many elastics, and even apologized for bullying him years ago. After breakfast, once again we had to spend one hour in the car to take Henry for his appointment, Dr. Susan had already sent his impressions and X rays. We left him there and went to the movies when we came back his teeth were dark and he talked funny, and yes, I was a little afraid of him. Dr. Falcon gave him full bands, plus an upper expander in the beginning until he got used to his braces, then he would get some other appliances.

I used to say that his teeth became dark and he started staying more time at home, I remember that he used to go out only to go to school and soccer practice. Less than two weeks later, on the day the summer vacation started, we had to go there again because Henry, with a black eye, tried to remove his expander by himself, luckily he didn’t damage it but he would regret trying to do it.  The guy who used to bully Henry had had his braces off the day before and thought it would be funny to resume bullying the losers who still wore braces, the bigger the braces the more teasing and Henry, with his full bands and expander and the lisp that he already had more noticeable by the braces, was made his main target again. They fought, Henry tried to punch the bully, but the bully was faster and punched him in the eye, making fun of his lisp and spitting on his face. Henry arrived home and tried to remove the expander with a plier but Heather saw and told dad, who stopped him.

3- The cage

I was in the waiting room with mom and two boys older than Henry, both wearing full bands but one of the guys wearing double headgear and the other a big facemask framing his face,  when we all heard Dr. Falcon.

“That’s why I don’t accept little spoiled brats. You want to be treated like a child, you will be! You’re about to learn that you have to wear your appliances as I ask you to. In one week you will be more than sorry for tampering with your expander, I’ll call your parents in two weeks to check out how you’re doing. How long you will wear it depends on your attitude.”

Dr. Falcon had already talked to mom so it wasn’t a surprise for her but when I saw Henry I was at the same time scared and feeling sad for him, the boys in the waiting room stared at him, horrified and I guess he hadn’t seen it yet, because when he got in the car and saw in the mirror he started crying and sobbing all our way back home. We only stopped to buy paper tissues for him to wipe his mouth when the saliva came out because he couldn't close his mouth for a long time or use his tongue to stop it.

The appliance was like a cage and he wore it in front of his teeth. It was from the back right teeth to the back left ones, where it was firmly tied by wires and covered from the middle of his upper teeth to the bottom of the lower ones, where it was tied to some lower brackets with a spring. To brush, he had to open his mouth really big while mom used a special toothbrush, passing it through the springs that tied the cage to the lower brackets. If it weren’t for his overbite he could close his lips together for a longer time, but because of his protruding teeth plus the cage in his mouth, he could close his mouth for just a little while. He was able to speak but he wasn’t able to put anything inside his mouth. It consisted of thick vertical metal bars and had a round opening for him to put on a straw to be able to eat and drink, twice a day he had to ask mom to help him clean everything.

On the first day, he learned not to tamper with his braces. In a week he asked mom to call Dr. Falcon to have it removed but Dr. Falcon said that he was the only one who could tell if Henry was done or not. Henry then was looking forward to his next appointment three weeks later, hopeful to have it removed but Dr. Falcon’s secretary called telling him to reschedule so he had to have it for two more weeks. At home, he spent most of the time in his room, where no one was allowed to get in but sometimes, he played with me. All the time he said that nobody liked him, not even his baby sister, me, but mom and dad showed me that his dark caged teeth didn’t make him bad.

That’s when mom and dad told me that he needed me to be his friend. I was closer to Heather but she hardly ever had time to play with me now, always with her friends, so I started spending a long time with Henry and his showy metallic mouth. I didn’t like it in the beginning because Heather’s friends mocked of him and it made him cry, but every time he cried I was there, giving something for him to dry his mouth or drawing for him, I just had to remember to draw other things but not him, because he was sad when I gave him one of the drawings. Probably it wasn’t a good one, but I remember that I was sad because it took time to draw his braces. I even used glitter!

4- The dark teeth trying to escape

He had the cage removed and in the tubes it was fixed, he now had to insert his facebow. Around my bedtime, I saw him going to the bathroom and he had a big wire coming out of his mouth, his headgear (that I thought it was the dark teeth trying to escape), and sometimes mom made him wear it for all weekend long. He was supposed to wear for 18 hours a day, but he had spent most of his summer vacation with that cage, locked in his bedroom and didn’t want to miss the whole summer so he promised mom that as soon as the classes started he would wear it for  18 hours, but now on vacation, he would wear it for only 12 hours a day or whenever he was at home. Mom agreed, what they didn’t know was that Dr. Falcon wouldn’t have agreed at all.

On the next appointment, Dr. Falcon could tell that he wasn’t wearing his headgear as directed and asked mom if she wasn’t keeping track of his hours, then she said that as he had behaved well with the cage, she allowed him to wear the facebow for 12 hours a day so that he could enjoy his summer, Dr. Falcon replied that it wasn’t her call to decide how many hours Henry should wear his appliances, and from that moment on all his appliances would be fixed, once he couldn’t trust nor Henry, nor his parents, so he had his headgear wired in. I remember him crying because he couldn’t take it off anymore and he had to go to school and eat with that thing on. The cervical neckband was replaced by an Interlandi and the regular facebow was changed to another one with loops that made it even more noticeable. He also started shaving his head because of all the straps that covered from the top of his head to his nape. The bully never stopped the teasing but when he started dating Heather, he had to stop bullying her brother. At least in front of her.

Henry was the one who taught me to brush my teeth and take care of them so that I didn’t have ‘dark teeth’ in the future and I did what he said because he told me the dark teeth made him very sad, he also told me that if I had to have ‘dark teeth’ (what now was more an internal joke) I had to do everything as directed because he didn’t, that’s why he had those ugly bands and the headgear tied to his teeth. Eight months after his headgear was wired in, mom almost cried asking Dr. Falcon to unwire it for Henry’s Prom, which he accepted, provided he wore it all the time, except during the Prom. On the day after the event, it was wired in again, on the same day he also had a lower expander and an upper tongue crib installed.

5- In college with a mouthful

A few months later he went to college and it was difficult because he was my favorite person but he used to visit me a lot. I was growing up and mom and dad even took me to Dr. Susan but she said that I would have to be older to start doing something.

Henry said that in college, except for his first year, when he was adapting to living by himself and had quite a mouthful, it wasn’t so bad because there was a research program, which Dr. Falcon himself was the director so he wasn’t the only one wearing headgear, nor even the only one with it wired in but there was only another person wearing full bands, a girl named Kerry. The difference was that Kerry asked to wear the most conspicuous braces she could have and Henry never asked for all that metal in his mouth.

Henry became a subject to Dr. Falcon's studies and mom and dad were glad they didn't have to pay for all the appliances Henry came to have fitted. Henry’s expanders finished the expansion more than a year later but he kept them in for another six months. I remember that he didn’t like going out and meeting new people because even with the headgear kind of hiding it, there were huge gaps between his front teeth, and the tongue crib could be seen through the gaps. Apparently the very big gaps didn't scare Kerry, because it was during this phase with the big gaps, tongue crib, expanders, and fixed headgear that they started dating.

The expanders were removed but he kept the tongue crib for some time. On that day he had also fitted a facemask to help to pull his lower jaw forward but he had to use it for only 12 hours a day. It had blue chin and forehead pads and the forehead piece held a thick elastic covering the back of his head, the metal bars were from the chin pad up to the forehead piece in a square shape, in front of his mouth a metal bar with hooks held thick elastics. He wore it for one year.  When he was 23 years old Dr. Falcon unwired his headgear but he still had to wear it for 16 hours a day, he also wore four elastics and the tongue crib.

6 - The new orthodontist

Henry, who wanted to be a surgeon, decided to become an orthodontist and started working with Dr. Falcon. He had the full bands changed to silver brackets in the last year of active treatment but Dr. Falcon said that wearing his headgear during the fixed retention was mandatory because of the new retention program he was studying. He kept his braces for two more years, during the retention phase. After the retention with fixed braces, he was fitted retainers to be used 24/7 during the first year and after that only to sleep.

He was 26 years old when he finished his long orthodontic journey, but when he laughs I can see something shiny on his back teeth and one day I dropped by his apartment without calling first and there were weird noises, but it was weirder seeing Kerry's reflection in the bathroom mirror where she was hiding. Henry’s fiancée was wearing headgear and there was another facebow under the book I had forgotten there and I've never seen Henry so pale as when I picked the book revealing the furtive appliance.

My brother is the most handsome guy in the world, with his perfect smile that is a great advertisement for his brand new clinic. I asked him if he was going to be my orthodontist, not because my teeth are a mess because they’re not but because I really love him and I wanted to be his first patient, now that Dr. Susan is retiring and Henry will kind of inherit her patients.

Henry said that he will open his clinic in two weeks but he doesn’t think I need treatment, I just have to keep taking care of my teeth because I might have a predisposition to tooth decay, because of my birth mother but I’m doing everything to prevent it and then he starts teasing me, first saying that my boyfriend needs braces before I do, making me blush and then asking if I’ll be afraid of my boyfriend when he gets dark teeth and it doesn’t matter how much I tell him that I don’t have a boyfriend, I can’t hide anything from my brother just like my boyfriend’s closed mouth smiles can’t hide that he needs braces just as much as Henry needed. But that’s another story.

 

Offline bracessd

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Re: Story - "Dark Teeth"
« Reply #1 on: 18. June 2020, 17:28:13 PM »
Great story, I hope you continue!

Offline bracesfanza

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Re: Story - "Dark Teeth"
« Reply #2 on: 19. June 2020, 04:25:24 AM »
Great story!

Offline m1090y

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Re: Story - "Dark Teeth"
« Reply #3 on: 19. June 2020, 12:24:05 PM »
Yes, a very nice story.  I always like hearing different ways that characters interpret braces.

Offline Jock1

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Re: Story - "Dark Teeth"
« Reply #4 on: 04. July 2020, 23:02:12 PM »
Excellent story, would love to read more!