Reverting, always an adventure

Today I had the great fortune to revisit an old stomping ground: the Orthodontist.

I had years of orthodontic work done during the ages of 12-14. Back in 2005, my senior year of college, I returned for a new problem, no longer crooked teeth and crooked jaw, but a clenching jaw causing popping and clicking and pain about my face. I continued to visit the office for the duration of my grad school studies.

About a month ago, during a particularly stressful period of time, I found that I'd wake up in the morning with my jaw clenched tightly against my specially-made jaw splint that is to prevent clenching. That brought me to the conclusion that I'd worn down my poor device so much by clenching and grinding in my sleep that it needed a significant adjustment.

Thus, this morning, I found myself back at my old orthodontist's office, saying hello to some faces I've known for half of my life, changing my name in yet another medical office, and seeing new assistants gazing into my open mouth who are far younger than myself. That was, perhaps, the most startling part.

Of course it had been three years since I'd last seen my orthodontist. I trust him implicitly with my particular jaw needs, and thus I refuse to find one that's a reasonable distance from my home. While reading my chart, he asked the fewest number of questions possible to get the information needed, made the necessary adjustments to the splint, and then, stepped around in front of me to chat for a minute. When he found out I was a librarian, he shared that his brother is a librarian at a prestigious NY school and began regaling me with the difficulties that all librarians are facing with funding cuts and the loss of resource budgets.

As he chatted, he lowered himself into a nearby chair and removed his paper mask and I found myself shocked by how much he has aged in just three short years. Somethings about him don't change, like his wild red, curly hair, his most notable feature, although it was less robust than I remember. But other features were markedly different: his eyes were a bit sunken, his face wan, his belt very tight against his thin frame. I began to wonder at his age, then at how long he has dedicated his life to perfecting teeth and helping stress-filled people like myself cope with strange jaw-related issues like TMJ disorder. It's interesting to think of having a profession in which you can so concretely measure your success. He's helped x number of patients and corrected x number of orthodontic problems. My profession has absolutely NO method of measuring how we help people, even though that's a large part of what I (we) do.

It's funny, and seems very odd to even say this, but I will always have a soft spot for my orthodontist. He was always cheerful, even when he was ripping out glued-in appliances and some of your teeth along with them.