snapshots of me

I stood at the counter watching the black and white pages pop from the machine.  The weight of the notebook a phantom in my hand. I had found it while waiting to be helped by the man at the print shop.

It was tucked away on a shelf.  The cover, a waxy wash of blue, pages dots, not lines, an open spine, and only $10.  But still, with so many expenses this month I told myself I didn't need it.  I didn't need another notebook.

Over the weekend I thought about it.  The smell.  The blueness.  The clean slate.  Sunday at 5:55 I checked the prints shops hours- Sunday 12-6.

On Monday I struggled with the rumpled green bills inside my wallet.  I mentally tagged each one of them towards the desserts needs for Beach's birthday, for a proper gift for Baby J, towards the trip to the bounce house for her, and fresh vegetables we would be needing midweek.

No money for a notebook.

But on Tuesday morning I made an excuse to go to the post office and drove the print shop.  I found a blue notebook.  Rubbed the cover.  I opened it.  Shut it.  Turned it over and rubbed the back.  I put it back once but the second time I picked it up I carried to the counter.

"This one is my favorite," the man said.  Then he showed me its blueness, it's open spine, its grid, not lined pages. He was the same man who had helped me the week before.

When I got home I was too nervous to write in it.  I got out a sheet of notebook paper and wrote: Pieces of Me. Below that, I spaced out the words: Me, Family, School, House, Yard, Travel, and Work across the paper. Then I got to work adding in the details under each part.

When I was satisfied I took up the blue notebook.  Opened the first page and printed in 4 months of calendars and listed important events off to the side.  I skipped the second page but on the third, I carefully copied in the Pieces of Me. Adding artful accents and using 3 different colors of ink.

It wasn't until the late afternoon when I was standing on the summit that I realized it had been one week.  That last Tuesday I was not on top of a mountain.  I did not have a new blue notebook and a clean slate.  I was way out in the valley at the dentist's office closing old doors.

One week.

What divinity is this?

A naked dragon with granite bones

It sleeps like a cat coiled and still

but rises like a serpent

rolling to the sea

breaking the surface of the sky

with scales of red and yellow

and eyes of winter white

In that space, I have already hiked 2 hikes that mean more than miles to me. The Living Room is inside my soul.  It is my heart and my fears.  It holds pieces of my sister, of love, of loss, fire, and snow.

Elbow Fork is of another lifetime- and another love.  It is the fight I have been fighting for the past 3 or 4 years.  The fight to make it to higher ground.  It holds the sound of silence, ghosts of steamy breath, BC's hand outstretched, flannel, rain, and lightning.

As I hike I take snapshots of myself smiling at nothing and marvel at how much I am starting to look like ME.

The mountain breaks the October sky,

tearing at its white dress

ripping holes in its autumn peace

I could stay here in its whisper

rest in the wind

let the dog go feral like the trees

When I return from the mountain I gather all the notebooks from this past year and burn them in the yard in a nest of fallen leaves and narrow branches.  The flames blacken out the calendars with important events.  The dentist appoints littered like buckshot among them disappear.  The fire licks the pages; meal plans, medication schedules, soft food lists, chores, projects completed, words already written, gifts already bought and given. The notebooks burn.

I go inside and take up the blue book.  On the fourth page, I write.

back at the finish line

My dentist, like a young boy unable to control his excitement, blurted out, "Oh wait! I want to show you this."

We are the same age and he is a very good looking man, almost as handsome as he thinks he is.

As he fumbled to adjust the chair, pushing aside the tray of tools, and navigating the white cords that hung about like vines he produced a hand mirror; I sighed.  It was deep and heavy with the knowledge that I was about to disappoint him something I didn't want to do.

He handed me the mirror.  I barely held it.  I tilted my head.

"They're teeth," I said flatly handing back the mirror.

 I thought I heard him huff, sad, dejected. He muttered something jokingly to the room.

A minute or so later while the dental assistant occupied me he slipped out into the waiting room to find BC for a better payoff to all his hard work.  He told BC what I had said.

"That sounds about right," BC answered, "Even today she isn't happy to be here."

Back in the room with me, my dentist told me he understood my reaction.  Assured himself, to me, that I wasn't the only patient too overwhelmed by the moment to be happy.  I believed him.  I knew it was true- it had to be.

He fought me a full half hour to get the bite right.  "How's that?" and I would answer with a shrug or a pathetically dull "great".  He would try the bite plate over and over then ask again, "How's that, closer?"

Shrug, "I don't know. Don't you know?"

I wasn't trying to be difficult I honestly don't know what my regular bite should feel like. In total, I have 9 new crowns in my mouth.  It feels... crowded. It feels cold.  It feels like enough porcelain to redo a bathroom.

"Misty, we are minutes away from being done," his tone begged.
"I am sure I am happy...." I was digging deep.  Am I happy?  This is over.  It's all done.  Why am I not happy?  

He continued explaining that he understood, that it was normal. But you could he was disappointed.

It didn't feel normal to be the only one it truly affected and yet to be the single person in the office not be touched by it.  Everyone was excited except me.

"We are so close, " he whispered with his head down, hands in my mouth.

That was when I thought about the snow.  About running.  The coldness against my face.  Wet boots.  Head, hot and sweaty beneath a hat.  It won't hurt anymore when I run in the snow... that's right.  It won't hurt.  And I almost started crying.

But I didn't want to give that to him either.  That had been our first encounter.  I cried so much I couldn't talk.

Of all the appointments to restore my teeth, this one was the worst and it wasn't supposed to be.

The sedation medicines were making me too sick to use again so I had to go in unsedated.

All he was doing was setting 4 new crowns, "polishing" and filling a chip.

The gas didn't help to calm me.  I could feel it touching the jagged edges.  Pulling at the corners like melting tar but my anxiety was far stronger.  I felt sick to my stomach when I tried to relax into it.

Nothing he did was painful.  Mostly it was pressure and pinching.  A pressure that fed straight into the fear of pain. The fear of not being in control of your own body.

The office was freezing but quickly I sweat through my clothes.  My dentist would throw his chin towards my clasped hands directing his assistant to touch them.  She would place her soft hands over mine but it did nothing to lessen my grip.

Every once in a while, my dentist himself would place his gloved hands over them. My dentist told me at the end he literally thought I was going to break at least one of my fingers.

In theory, he should have been able to do the 5-minute chip repair without numbing me.  Halfway I stopped him and told him he was going to have to give me a shot.  I know he didn't want to.  Flecks of frustration flashed across his face; he didn't want to have to hurt me and the shot he knew would do that.  He knew if I could trust him that I wouldn't get hurt- but even all these months later I couldn't give that to him.

I have never lied to you.
We are so close.
Whatever you need.
Misty, we are almost done, all the bad stuff is over.

The night before my first appointment way back in March, I stood in the shower telling myself, "You are the patient, the work is his, you are the patient, there is nothing you have to do."

Nothing but trust.

This man, my dentist, he will never know why it was so hard for me to trust him. Why it was, and is, so hard for me to give up power and control even for my own best interest. How deep the forces are that he went up against- and won.

Without BC it never would have happened.  I would have gone on living in pain, clouded by embarrassment.  I borrowed BC's trust in the process to get through.  Together we found a dentist that an ego big enough to win a blind fight with me.

My dentist, sometimes when he works he is looking away.
Once he dropped something on me and laughed, "Yeah, you don't make me nervous at all."
Mostly when he works he sings.
Sometimes he explains in long detail what he did like a teacher teaching a class.
I can read the urgency in his voice even when he tries to cover it.

When it was all over I stood in the waiting room shaking.  Exhausted.  Not sure what or how to feel.  He had finally gotten me numb.  The shot he had injected into my top jaw had actually worked.

I thought about the burn unit about drug addicts.  The words of Dr. Morris to a young burn patient just brought in, "Our medicine doesn't work so well if you are already using your own."  The whole room knew the kid was high but he won't admit it- until they asked me to give it a try.

I leaned in low eclipsing his line of sight to the rest of the room and got him to answer me truthfully because he felt like it was just he and I.  My truth is I have spent so long numbing myself it is hard for anyone else to help me.

Here I am with that behind me. And yet everyone but me is standing at the end of this journey.  I am somehow at the beginning a little less sure what to do now.  This giant shadow is gone and the light is blinding. I have tried to see this whole process as healing and recovery but that is what now seems to be.

I don't know what to call the past 9 months.

I wasn't home but a couple of hours when I heard Brandon's voice downstairs as he let himself in. I hadn't seen him in months, perhaps even a year. I put down the book I was trying to disappear into to listen to his dog move across the floor with mine.

I listened to BC and him chatting as if time was wrinkled in a white sheet of paper.

I waited for BC to call me before slowly walking down the stairs to rejoin my life like nothing had ever happened.

I don't believe in god but if I did when I become lost and unsure which way to go he would send me a sign.  A sign he knows I wouldn't ignore.

 

if I could see

At this moment I wish I could see into the future.  Standing in front of the bathroom sink trying to decide if I should wear mascara or if I really shouldn't.  It all depends on the news I am about to get.  No, not on the news, on my reaction to it.

I think hard about it.  I try to feel which way I am leaning but I turn up empty.  I haven't a clue anymore.  The only feeling I can pull on is the thick, queasy feeling of the sedatives we have used to get me through past appointments.

I am up at 5 am.  In the shower by 5:15.
At 6:30 I will wake Beach for gym.
At 7:32 we will pull out of the driveway.
At 7:50 we will be at gym.

At 9:00 I will be standing alone in the office of my dentist as the ladies behind the desk gush over how great I look and how far I have come.  As in not balling hysterically with BC nearby making sure I don't run out.  As in not drugged.  As in not being hauled out of the office in a wheelchair.

I will cringe inside; smile a closed mouth smile (habit) and dismiss their optimism with a warning about me not being in the chair yet.

I should be able to do this.  All I need is a set of x rays.  They will tell us if the screws in my jaw are healing.  If it goes well I will be given a date for the first of the last 2 appointments I will need.  My math says the earliest that would be is the end of August, more likely September, but this whole time frame has been somewhat of a disappointing mystery novel that never ends.  When we started I had no idea how long this would take.

A month ago I couldn't imagine being left in lingo this long.  September, November, December.  I no longer know if that is too far off or too soon.  Part of me, against all logic, feels not ready.  The last 2 appointments should be pretty easy but I feel like my tolerance is thin and my fear fatter than ever. And that is if it goes well.

If it goes bad? Anyone of the screws, or even all of them, could have failed and we would have to "start" over- whatever that would mean; bone grafting?  I know I would not be capable of that and yet I know it could happen anyway.  It could happen in little steps.  Little impossible to think about steps just as it already has.

I think what I am most afraid of is crying over "good" news but that sounds insane- and a little hopeful.  It could be out of relief.  Fear.  Beneath that worry, I can hear the whisper of what bad news might do to me.  I keep thinking I should ask them to not tell me my results.  To have them call me when I am safely in my own car driving away.  I would never be brave enough to ask.

Although, I am being "brave" enough to go without BC.  He intended to go with but he has been so busy I let him forget about it and I am sneaking off without him.  Letting him sit this one out guilt free.

That is how it is done.
Tiny steps.

And I suppose a little bit of mascara.

from gray to white

My fingers are so swollen I can barely close my hand around the handle of my coffee cup.  The tips bursting and rough- they remind me more of BC's hands than my own.  My elbows ache.  My back is throbbing.  Even, for whatever reason, my feet hurt.

After 2 showers I keep finding patches of white paint on my body; my arms, my legs, it's in my hair. I have ruined 2 sets of clothing.  I knew I would.  I am the world's messiest painter.  

Picture Cookie Monster eating cookies.  Now make that me and put a paintbrush in my hand.  That's me impulsive, erratic, and impatient.  Painting requires everything I am not and yet I am the one who paints here.   

But without the usual argument of "Honey, it's not worth it. I am going to remodel the whole thing soon..." BC set me up to repaint the kitchen (4th time since we have lived here?) while he and Beach spent a long weekend out on a Father and Daughter camping trip.

I figure after the last few months of my skimming the bottom he was grateful to see me want to do anything.  From the day after my last dentist appointment, I watched him watching me, waiting to see if I could free myself from my sadness or if he would need to jump in.  

On Friday about 3PM BC's truck loaded with camping gear pulled out of the driveway.  By 4:00 I took all the dishes and such out of the kitchen.  They were stacked neatly at first on the dining table but I quickly ran out of the room.  By the time the kitchen was cleared the front room looked like a good candidate for an episode of hoarders.  

I told myself I was prepping for the next day but by 10PM the first horrible coat was completely finished.  So was half a season of the podcast Serial and 2 LaCroix sodas.  I fell asleep on the sofa watching a documentary on Stalin. That's where I was when the dog started growling into the dark at the Not My Pizza Delivery Guy knocking at the front door. Scared the shit out of me! 

At 6AM on Saturday, after already putting on a streaky second coat of paint, I was at Home Depot picking out new hardware.  I stopped by the paint section to get a sample size of Surfs Up Blue, another paintbrush, and a paint cup.  Don't worry my kitchen is not Surfs Up Blue, it's white this time.  Clean and crisp, not really smooth, but new and bright.

It was the paint BC gave me.  He said it was expensive cabinet paint left over from a job- perfect for me.  He gave me one brush, one roller, a pan, 2 drop cloths, a roll of tape, a sanding block, and some tool that looks like a giant butter knife that was run over by a truck or maybe a weird bottle opener- I have no idea what it is for although yeah, it does open bottles pretty well.

Back on Friday while BC had been gathering my painting supplies I was packing his cooler and the other camping gear he would need for the weekend.  It was pretty funny.  Each of us doing the other's job for them.  Every time we handed something off to the other I would offer warnings about too much sun, about lightning, about snakes and BC would explain how you should get the roller wet then ring it out before starting, about not soaking the brush up to the handle in the paint.

I never did soak the brush up to the handle in the paint and yet there is paint on the handle anyway...   
  

The paint counter at Home Depot and I have some history.  It's where after asking way too many questions about the paint I was buying (for the last time I went rogue and painted the bathroom & the kitchen) the nice old guy behind the counter looked around then leaned in, "Does your husband know you are here?" 

As a matter of fact no- if he did I wouldn't have any questions.  

This time when the clerk asked what kind of paint I said, "Whatever you use for cabinets." He smiled thinking I was joking.  

I smiled; not joking- I don't know.  There is a lot I don't know about all this.  In fact, I spent a good deal of time wondering if Home Depot sells nails because I can never find any in BC's shop.  I usually harvest them from the walls of the house.  It's an old house.  It has lots of spares.  If that fails I can always pry one or two loose from the packages of nails wired together for the nail gun.      

"My husband is a contractor," I explained to the paint clerk. "I do things while he's gone and if I mess it up he fixes it or if I pull it off he says nice work.  It's a win-win for me." 

I was given a tiny can of whatever-kind-of-paint-you-paint-cabinets-with in Surfs Up Blue and sent on my way.  I drove around the crowd of day labors to the McDonald's at the edge of the Home Depot parking lot.  I ordered a large coffee, a sausage biscuit, and a hash brown. I don't remember eating any of them but I do remember reheating the coffee- twice.

Three to four coats of paint in the kitchen (quantity winning over quality), 2 random door frames and a cupboard in the bathroom painted white (waiting for paint in the kitchen to dry), the other half of the podcast Serial, and a good part of S-town later, I left for the grocery store to find lunch dinner.  

In line, my cart: a six-pack of hard lemonade and a small frozen pizza.  (Don't worry too much about my nutrition, I had a big mixed greens salad with a slice of the pizza.) The clerk looked at my hands.  "Painting something?" she asked cheerfully. 

"Yes, my kitchen while my husband is gone...."  That's when I realized it.  I hadn't thought about anything else other than painting for 2 days.  For 2 days I didn't exist even to myself- and it was wonderful.  

I pushed long and late and I was willing to be miserable to do something that needed to be done.  Something I wanted to be done.  It was awful, physically and mentally uncomfortable.  I remember thin lines of thought drown in thick streams of paint.  

Quiet, limitless white time.  And I chose to be there when I hadn't chosen to be anywhere else for months.

I told her the same thing I had told the paint clerk about being a contractor's wife but she said, "Maybe he will hire you." 

"No way.  It is horrible work."  I answered but I was laughing as I said it.  It is horrible, wonderful work.  Who knew that was the answer.  That all I needed was a good whitewash or more precisely the work behind it.  

Often chasing the sun is the answer but sometimes the answer is inside the darkness itself.  Sometimes misery just needs company.  Like a cut needs a bandage to feel better.  My tired and my miserable needed a place to go.  And it did.  It went from gray to white.      
     

one day it will be

I remember her saying those words.  Her back to me as she stood.  The microphone trembling in her pale hand. The room was lit with damp light; bathed in maroon and dirty cream.  Mixed with the buzzing of a little brown box speaker was the chatter of metal folding chairs beneath the shifting weight of 50 or so women in floral dresses.

At her feet an infant in a car seat; in her arms a sweaty disheveled but finally sleeping toddler.  Down the hall a mess of a young boy about 4 years old sitting out in the hallway beside the humming drinking fountain with his head in his arms waiting to be unceremoniously returned to his mother. Yes, this boy belonged to her too.

"I don't feel it now in my heart; my heart is dark. I don't know how I will ever feel okay but this is what the Lord told my husband... that we were to have more children.  I asked him if he was sure because I didn't think I could handle more. I still don't.  I still don't understand it." Her eyes drifted to the infant. "The days are so dark.  I am sure one day it will be a blessing but right now it is so hard, one day I will understand why this is being asked of me, why this is the path I was chosen for...."

This woman, her lumpy lean body and half curled hair, no makeup, her and her 3 kids all under the age of 5- she was the Bishop's wife.  This was his family.

In her testimonial, she explained her way around depression and how devastated she had felt when her husband had told her it was time to have another child.  That child, the infant at her feet.  She told the whole room she hated that baby...

I remember thinking, oh my god, that baby can hear you.  Oh my god, you are going to kill yourself and maybe those kids. Oh my god, this is madness.

I was new to these kinds of meetings.  I hadn't been to church since I was a young teenager.  Now returning as a young mom myself I was sent to the adult meetings.  They were soft and mystical but often offensive.  I would find myself asking, can they say that? Is that okay to tell other people? Isn't that personal choice?

When I think about them I think about the smell of roses, the static of nylon, and velvet voices.

I had returned to church because I had 2 young kids; one of which could easily be sentenced to the same fate as her young son- expelled from nursery to sit in the hall until he could behave- which was never.

I had a Mormon husband who was at home sleeping off a hangover. I was lonely. I was tired of trying to keep the kids from waking the wrath of their dad, tired of endless cartoons, and dark windows.  I was looking for somewhere where whispering made sense.

I remember when that tiny bell chimed to mark the end of the class how I slipped pass the women flowing towards the Bishop's wife,  Flowing towards her righteousness, her courage, and her obedience to her husband and the Lord.

I remember needing to find my children and get the hell out of there.  That was the last time I ever went to church.

My whole family is Mormon.  I was raised in the church.  I know the argument; don't let one bad experiences or person ruin a whole religion. That's nice. But even without that experience, I not religious. I'm just not. I never was.

This isn't about religion anyway it's about that moment of being on a path you didn't follow willingly.  Sometimes it is for the best and sometimes it is not. Hoarders have to do their own cleaning, addicts have to be ready to quit, the patients have to want to get better.

The day before my last dental surgery I had one person at my work remember and wish me well.

The night before my last dental surgery I called it off.  In turn BC called my dentist on his private number.  He ordered valium; one for that night and another for the morning to accompany the other sedatives I was to take.

I didn't want the implant posts- I didn't want the implants.  I never have. I wanted a fixed bridge instead, it was less money, less time, less pain.  If I was having a bridge placed that would have been the final procedure.  I would be done now instead of some undisclosed 3-6 months from now.

The dentist and BC choose implants for me. It is the better choice- only honestly it's not for me.  It's too much for me to handle. And yet despite all my objects to submitting to having my jaw drilled into when I knew I wouldn't be numb I took the valium and watched Soccer on TV.

So, valium is great if you want to feel like you are locked in the attic of a smoke-filled house, totally trapped, nosed pressed to a tiny oval window overlooking a garden party.  And no matter how hard you tap on the glass no one hears you.  Yep, valium effects every part of my body except my mind.

Didn't take the second dose of that shit in the morning.  I got up at 5am and showered.  At 7 am I took the first dose of sedative.  At 8am I was in the dentist chair.

The regular sedition worked medium well. Like before I remember mostly everything, The 2 new crowns were pretty easy.  The 2 top implant posts were not horrible.  The bottom 2 not so great.  We had to stop so often for localized numbing shots by the time he was working on the last one I quit flagging him that it hurt.

When he felt me flinch he questioned me, "Hey, that hurt, where was your hand?"

I shook my head under his hands, no.

My hand was too busy holding my work schedule with the extra shifts I gladly work that no one seems to remember or credit me for. Including the double, I am supposed to pull on Tuesday after having it off for medical recovery and taking it back plus the afternoon to help a coworker attend a wedding.  I won't be ready to go back but I will be there.

My hand was holding the sharp edge of a new haircut I am scheduled for next week that no one will notice because I don't matter in that way to other people.

It was busy holding the threads together of a trip out of town over the weekend for Beach and Soph.  Holding the phone to my ear for people asking my help but never asking if I'm okay.  Holding in an embrace with a mom I don't even know as she cried at the gym on the day her daughter was retiring because to her I am a symbol of the gym where I work.

My hand was not telling him I was in pain because it was holding a microphone, a sleeping toddler, and the corner of cornflower printed burp cloth.  

That was Thursday today is Saturday.  Since then my hand has been holding an ice pack to my jaw as I watch the clock waiting for the one hour of pain relief I get every 4 hours from the rx I have.  

I don't feel it now in my heart; my heart is dark.  I don't know how I will ever feel okay but this is what is being asked of me... one day it will be a blessing but right now it is so hard...

I cried through the whole placement of the posts but it wasn't from the pain.  It was from being on a road I don't want to be on.  I keep being told I will be so glad later... later is so far away.  And until I find later I am alone doing something I can't actually do.

The girls at the dentist office tried to offer me tissues as the tears rolled down my cheeks but it didn't do any good. They tried to tell me how great the new crowns looked.  They asked me to smile to show them but I couldn't because it had been so long since I had smiled that way I didn't know how.

skipping stones from here in the in-bewteen

I am writing this from the before place.  Writing this from the in-between.  Writing this from the road to recovery.

When I started this Blog I gave myself permission, to be honest- but space to choose my honesty.  Choose what is public and what is private.  Most often the voice I capture here is my mom voice.  Soft white with ribbons of blue, I speak of our children. Sometimes you might catch strings of my underlining sadness or the loose threads of my fears.

This is not that. This is all me.  The red brick walls at the center of who I am.  The bricks that hold all the other pieces of me together.

For a long time, I have encased a secret.  Probably at times not so secret- my teeth were in bad shape.  Almost all of my back teeth were chipped or cracking.  They needed crowns and new fillings.  A few needed more than crowns.

I lived like that for a long time, more than a decade, maybe 2.  I have carried this weight with me a long way. I even remember a horrifying moment while reading my sister's autopsy.  It was noted her teeth were in good condition. It was shocking that all I could think was, how is that possible? Her teeth are fine and mine are messed up?!

Each year they slowly got worse. Each year the pain harder to manage.  The secret bigger and bigger.  It became part of my life every waking minute.  It was always there haunting me, pressing in with worry, pain, and shame.  But I refused to deal with it in any other way than to hide and cover.  As long as my front teeth remained healthy enough to hide the true state of my mouth I was going to keep going.

The state of my teeth wasn't from bad oral hygiene.  In fact, I had to be hyper-vigilant because of the pain.  My issue stemmed from several places: grinding my teeth, a bad blow to the head, and the biggest, my refusal to go to the dentist to get minor repairs and cleanings done.  Like a lot of people I deeply fear the dentist.

I have a good reason- I can't get or stay numb. 

Lots of people experience this.  My case is extreme!  Skipping ahead, my dentist told us he has never in his whole career had to push so much medication on one person.  He was apologizing over and over for not being able to get and keep me numb. That was even while using (and including a failure of) conscious sedation.

Valid fear aside, I also suffer from anxiety.  I have an issue with giving up control.  Part of why so many people fear the dentist is it goes against all of our animal instincts to lay down on our backs and let a stranger get right up in your face.  It's aggressive and it's unnatural.  It's nearly impossible for me.

For years BC stood back and watched me struggle.  By December, it was clear I was losing my war.  I was shutting down in a thousand ways.  It was getting dangerous.  One night out of the blue he asked me, "Are you ready to go see a dentist." I surprised us both by answering yes.

I cried all the way through the first visit.  BC was with me.  He had to do all the talking.  I even refused at first to know any of the details of the complex dental plan.  I wanted no information about what was about to happen.  I needed to give up all control to be able to go forward.  Like repelling off a cliff I had to lean back over the edge trusting the rope to hold me... and BC did.

We made the first appointment for the end of March, after State Meet.  I had a long time to get ready.  I remember counting down the events and days as it got closer.  I tried to prepare. I shopped for my special soft food diet.  I put pain medicine and a paper to keep track of them on a high shelf, knowing I wouldn't want to bend over afterward.  I put ice packs in the freezer. I scheduled time off from work and found drivers for Beach.

I remember standing in the shower the night before letting the water run down my body, you are the patient, you don't have to do anything, it's all his job, you are the patient, ..... I was trying to surrendering ever ounce of control I had left.  If I felt like I had any control I knew I wouldn't go.

The first appointment (deconstruction) was disastrous and successful.  The medicine meant to sedate me didn't work.  With the help of my anxiety, I was able to fight the effects of it and was aware and remembered the whole 5 plus hour procedure.  My dentist was having to stop and give me shots every 20 minutes just to get through.  By the end, the shots no longer worked at all.

It took me a week to recover, 2 weeks to feel normal, 3 weeks to be healed enough to use a straw.  One unexpected side effect is that although this is embarrassing to me, with no outward changes to the state of my mouth I was instantly no longer ashamed.

A month later I went back for the next step.  It was a minor procedure. This time the sedation medicine, a different rx, worked much better.  Coupled with nitrous oxide I was much less aware.  My dentist also changed the medication used for numbing to something known to last an uncomfortably long time.  He skipped the little nerves too; he went straight for the "big" one.  It felt like the shot was rupturing my ear drum but he only had to do it one time (on each side) in the 2-hour visit. 

We believe it was a dry run for how he will handle the next big appointment.  And yet alarmingly the numbness was totally gone by the time I was home.

I slept the rest of the day and what memories I had of the procedure closed like a book.  I was at work the next day feeling medium well.

Then I began to get curious.  I called the dentist with a list of questions.  The answers were not all wonderful.  The process was going to be a lot longer than I thought it would take.  The appointments more spread out because I was healing slowly.  I can't be too disappointed, I was never planning to have this done in the first place.  I should be overjoyed.  I am not.  I am assuming I will get there.  Vanity will kick in at some point but right now it feels more like survival than anything else.

So this is the in-between, the middle of May.  I am surprised I am willing to write this now.  I planned on writing about it when it was all safely behind me.  When if someone peeked inside my mouth all they would see is beautiful, whole teeth.  But there is something happening I didn't plan on.  Staring down my anxiety for such a long time changes how I am seeing it.  It changes how big I am willing to let it be in my life.  How much I will allow it to cover.

I don't consider getting my teeth fixed a victory over anxiety. For me, it was the better of 2 bad ideas.  A choice I didn't really have.  I leaned on BC to make it happen.  

However, I did believe to do this, even passively, I would have to go through all the old baggage I carry around (especial those related to my mouth) but I was wrong.  At my lowest point, it was like ducking under a fence.  Knees to the ground, crawling, and all those stones my anxiety, my guilt over my sister's death, and the weight of my past had slipped into my pockets, they spilled out onto the ground.  I simply stood up, brushed myself off, and weightlessly walked away from them.

Here in the in-between I can hear the hunger in my head and see all the false fixes filling in the cracks around my red bricks.  I can see a long way down the walls in both directions. I now know how people get into places they can't get out of.  And once again I know why I picked BC to be my partner.

I still have a few temporary crowns on so I am mostly adhering to a soft food diet- no apples, no carrots, no crackers or chips. It's not so fun or as weight loss friendly as one would first think.  Anything creamy is in, anything crunchy is out.

I have 2 more appointments pending.  The first of the last is scheduled for the end of May.  It will be a bad one.  I will somehow have to return to a point of being able to surrender. The irony is I feel so much stronger now it will be harder to do.  At times I am not sure I can, even though I know I will have to.  Then from there, I will go all summer in limbo; the last appointment sometime in August.  It should be a breeze, so I am told.      

I look out over a summer of recovery.  It's not what I thought summer 45 would be.  But it is a summer I will have to walk one way or another. It is up to me how I go about it.  On the other side is the person I will be going forward.  From here she looks a lot like someone I used to know- she looks a lot like me.