Mouthwear Stories: The Prospect

This story was retrieved from the old M's Mouthwear website from an internet archive. The Prospect

I have been laid up for 5 weeks now (two broken feet, don't ask) and wandered in here while surfing one day and thought you might like my tale of woe. I read a story about a girl whose mother wait to get orthodontic treatment until she was in high school. The same thing happened to me. In 1963 I was 12. My stepmother took me to Dr. Heuttner, the local orthodontist. My father was a salesman who spent most of his time on the road. Anyway it was determined that I needed braces, but my stepmother, claiming we did not have the money, put off treatment. As I was to find out years later, that wasn't true. So nothing happened for almost three years. By then I was a sophomore in high school and three weeks from my 15th birthday, and had pretty much forgotten about Dr. Heuttner. School had just started and the homecoming football game was coming up on Saturday, with a big dance that night. I had asked three weeks in advance if I could go to the dance, as well as a party at my best friend Cheryl's house on Friday. I had gotten a yes on both counts, without a fight, which I thought was pretty unusual, especially since she had overheard a phone conversation with Cheryl about the boys that were going to be at the party and dance, especially Frank, who I had a big crush on. My stepmother and I did not get along real well. I was no angel, but no criminal either, and she was a big time control freak, especially with me. My half brother (a great guy, we have always loved eachother and respected eachother, to this day) could do no wrong and I could do no right, at least in her eyes. So it was the Friday of the big weekend and I woke up about 8 o'clock, over an hour later than usual. Cathy (stepmother) usually woke me around 7. I had no chance to catch the bus and she cheerfully agreed to drive me, again a really strange thing. So as we were on the way to school, I thought, she turned right and went down the hill away from school. Two minutes later we were in the parking lot of Dr. Heuttner. I asked what was going on and Cathy told me it was time to start my orthodontic treatment. I was shocked and started crying, pleading with her to wait until at least Monday. No luck, she was determined that it happen that day, and had specifically requested that morning. She also asked that the full set of braces be put on that day. She had told Dr. Heuttner what a problem child I was and that they were going to have to force me to wear the braces. This I found out from my aunt 10 years later. I was the only patient that morning and was put right in the chair. My teeth stuck to far out, spaces between most of them, and neither jaw quite in line. None of those cute little brackets in those days, just the basic bands for each tooth. With very little discussion he went about putting thick rubber bands between the crowded back teeth, top and bottom. Most of the teeth took the bands without a problem, and he started the three hour process of putting the braces on. After about an hour the separators were giving some intense pain, but he just kept cementing those bands in place. He was determined to get them all on in one sitting. Between the pain and the shock, I was crying my eyes out, to no avail, he thought I was just being uncooperative. Once the bands were on he started with the arch wires, which took about a half hour each. Then he started giving me this lecture about how my parents were spending a lot of money and that I should be more grateful and that there are other kids out there who needed braces but would not get them because they did not have the money. He said it was sad that they had to force me to accept treatment and that he disliked having to fight patients to treat them. Most of the time he wouldn't got straight to the headgear on the first day, but since I had been so uncooperative up to this point, he an Cathy had agreed that "tying in" the facebow was the best option. He did not like problem patients, but he had dealt with them before and he was prepared to leave the bands on and facebow in no matter how long it took. I had never objected to the idea of braces, I obviously wasn't thrilled at the prospect, no kid was, but I would have gone voluntarily. It seems that we had the money all the time and Cathy was telling him for the past three years that I refused to wear braces and that they thought I would grow out of the stage. A blatant lie on her part. But the Dr. didn't know any better and proceeded to wire in the facebow, which I wore for the next fifteen months. None of this speech made any sense to me sitting in the chair, and I had no clue as to what he meant by "tying in" the facebow. He went to a drawer, took out the headstrap, a blue thing, with short blue adjustable elastic straps that started just above the ears and connected to the arms of the facebow. Once that was on he gave me another short speech about how lucky I was and how he hoped I would cooperate from now on. With that he led me to the waiting room and Cathy, who just smiled when she saw me. I finally got a chance to look in a mirror in the waiting room while Cathy set up the next appointment. I just started crying again at the sight of me, full banded braces, a facebow sticking out of my mouth, and that evil blue strap pushing down on my red hair. Now I know some people like the "braced" look, but after 5 hours of on and off crying, on top of the new heavy metal look that I had just acquired, I looked hideous. I had no advance warning it was going to happen and went from a normal looking teenager to a major orthodontic look in under 5 hours. I was not handling it well. As soon as we were out of the office I kept pulling on the facebow to get it off but it was locked on tight. Cathy told me what "tied in" actually meant and to just grin and wear it. I almost flipped accusing her of doing this intentionally just to make me miserable, and I was right. I spent the better part of the next hour staring in a mirror, looking for the way to release the facebow, I refused to believe it would not come out. It was about two o'clock and she decided to run errands, knowing how miserable I was. It was like I was some sort of new pet she had and she made me go into each and every store with her. And as a final touch she stopped by school to have me get the books I needed for homework that weekend. I was absolutely humiliated walking through school. I had never cried so much in my life and there was nothing I could do about it. By the time we got home I was pleading with her to go back and she just kept saying I was overreacting. She gave me some aspirin and asked me what time I wanted a ride to the party. I screamed that I was never going anywhere again and locked myself in my room. Cheryl stopped by after school to find out what was wrong with me and I let her in. I had almost convinced myself that it wouldn't be that bad until I saw the look of horror on Cheryl's face. She understood why I didn't go to her party, but Cathy wasn't done with her plan yet. She had volunteered to chaperone the dance and quite literally dragged me there, where I spent the worst 6 hours of my life. No one asked me to dance, for that matter only two or three boys even talked to me. Even my girlfriends treated me like a had some sort of fatal disease. Sorry I have rambled on so long. I hope I didn't bore everybody. By the way, my father divorced Cathy two weeks after the braces came off (Thanksgiving, freshman year, college) and no one talks to her anymore, even Todd, my brother. She tried to justify what she had done as a way to protect me from those lecherous members of the opposite sex, but even Dr. Heuttner, when he finally found out what was really going on, apologized, saying he would never have done it that way if he had known.