As a lot of you know, I got 10 teeth pulled approximately two months ago. This wasn’t the first time I got a large amount of teeth pulled. Long story short, I’m 23 years old and I have eight of my own permanent teeth left. If you want to say it’s because I didn’t take care of my teeth, then that’s what you can believe. The truth of the matter is, my Mother gave me bottles of pepsi as a baby (yes, she filled baby bottles, with the nipples, with pepsi) to put me asleep. “It was the only thing that would calm you down” she said. By the time I was five all of my teeth turned black and rotted out of my head. The dentist told my Father that my permanent teeth were going to also be in bad shape. Another huge factor of this whole ordeal is that my Mother and Grandmother have periodontal disease, which I too inherited. The last and final layer of the icing on the cake is I had Hyperemesis while pregnant with both my children. This meant I threw up non-stop for nine months straight during my pregnancy. Now, just imagine what all that stomach acid and erosion would do to your teeth? Yea, I’m a recipe for disaster.

With all of that being said, I got my teeth pulled out. I’m left with eight of my own teeth. Seven weeks ago, after I had them removed I was told that I would have to wait six weeks before even thinking about seeing the dentist who would be doing my denture fitting! Yup, that’s right folks. I’ve spent the last seven weeks without any teeth. The hit on my self image is astonishing but there’s nothing that can be done about it.

I’ve fallen in to a bad bout of depression over this.
I’ve wanted to just climb in a hole and die.

I will never be the same after this. My self image may increase when I get my dentures, but as of right now, I don’t believe anything will.

I finally went to see the dentist on Wednesday who will be fitting me with my dentures. This dentist is located in the heart of the ghetto. I’m scared to death to go down there but it’s my only choice at becoming normal again. When I had arrived I began to have a panic attack. I won a trip to the Marlboro Ranch in Montana – which I’ll be leaving for on July 10th. I was told that I have to have 3-5 appointments before I can get my dentures. Also, they’d have to be once a week. This made me freak out! If I were to take every appointment, on schedule for that exact date, my fifth appointment would fall on the week I left. There was a huge chance I wouldn’t have my dentures before my trip. I wouldn’t have gone.

I finally was seated and the dentist came in. He asked me what I was in for. “A full upper plate and a lower partial.” I said.

“Well, you sure do you know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes. I try.” Nervously, I began to ask the questions I was dying to know the answers to. “I was told that we have to have three to five appointments. Well, you see, I won a trip from a sweepstakes, and I was hoping and praying that I have all this taken care before then.”

“Oh absolutely! Let me look at my calendar and see what I can do for you.” He proceeded to run his fingers across the calender page for the month of June. I seen him stop at the 18th and tap his finger on it. “As long as you make all your appointments we can speed up the process and get them for you by the 18th. Does that sound like it would work?”

I nearly had a heart attack! I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to jump up and hug this man. Unfortunately, I’m still highly skeptical.

The dentist proceeded to do my impressions. They added a bunch of this goop in my mouth and placed it in taking a mold of my mouth. They took the bottom one with no problem. He began to do the top one and had an assistant come in to help him out. He placed the upper mold in my mouth. I felt the oozing goop run down the back of my throat. Yuck! He told me that I was on the train to the end. Everything was taken care of now and I was in good hands. He told me that he’d have me set up as soon as possible. He told his assistant that he wanted to put an acceleration on getting these dentures to me right away. He told her that I should come back as soon as possible for the next step.

She asked me, “Do you want to come back Monday of next week, or Friday of this week?”

“Friday of this week. Absolutely! I really can do the next step in two days? What will we be doing during the next appointments?”

“Well, on Friday, your next appointment, we will be giving you a wax mold. It’s going to look like a giant mouth guard that you’d wear while playing sports. The wax set will have your impression. We’re going to melt it down and make sure that it all fits perfectly in your mouth. The wax set is sent out and replaced with a wax set that have teeth. They will look like regular dentures. This will be on your third appointment. During that appointment you’ll be placed with your wax set and we’ll make sure to align everything in the center. We’ll determine how high or low the teeth need to go, make sure everything sits and touches correctly. The fourth appointment your dentures will be ready and it will just be adjusting and fitting from there.”

I thanked her a thousand times over and went to schedule my next appointment. I go back tomorrow. I left there with a huge smile on my face that wouldn’t go away. I am going to get my dentures. They’re finally coming. The light on the end of this long, bumpy, and scary tunnel is getting brighter by the day. Unfortunately, I still don’t know how long this tunnel is. I see the end, but the path is still not lit. I’m skeptical. I’m scared something is going to come up. I’m not getting my hopes too high.

I keep telling myself, “You will have your dentures in two weeks. You will have a smile again. You will have everything taken care of before you trip. You will have time to practice eating and talking and wearing them before your trip.” Now I just have to get myself to believe it. I don’t think that will happen because of the fear of getting my hopes crushed.

The end is near. I’ll keep you all updated on what else happens next!

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