« 27 February 2001 - 11:39 ayem | Main | 5 March 2001 - 11:31 pm »

I visited my orthodontist today.  It was not a fun trip.  I knew things would be bad as soon as he asked the assistant to "steel-tie" my bicuspids.  She has steel-tied my teeth in the past and it almost always ends in disaster.  [Steel-tying involves wrapping a thin steel thread around one of the appliances on my tooth, and twirling it around with a special device to make sure it is very tight.  Disaster with steel ties involves getting part way through the twirling phase, and then having the steel thread slip out of the twirling device, which requires that the steel tie be cut off, and the procedure repeated.]  Today the nice assistant girl managed to mess up the steel tying twice.  I was not happy.

Then came my attempts to find out from the orthodontist when he foresaw removing my braces.  I was curious because in mid-December he told me I only had 90 days left, and we're rapidly approaching that time.  The best response I could get out of him was that "we're in the home stretch."  I would feel a lot better about this if he hadn't been saying that since August.

All things considered, this is not how I like to spend my Fridays.  (Did I mention that I now wear four rubber bands at all times, a 100% increase over when I was last in to see the orthodontist?)  Not a good visit at all.

Posted by on 2 March 2001 at 11:31 AM