Despite the lack of comments, here is the new chapter. Feel totally free to give me your opinion.
Chapter 4 : The first appointment and the diagnosis
The morning of the appointment, I was feeling very nervous despite it was supposed to be a beautiful day, sunny with no cloud and quite hot (+22 °C). I finished my workday early so I could come back home, take a shower and change my day clothes before going to the appointment. Not so confident on this day, I decided to go to this appointment with unusually uncomfortable clothes, wearing a light blue sleeveless tight top under a denim jacket, black jeggings and white sneakers (this choice clearly meant I was not feeling good). I did my hair quickly with my hair tied back and of course I wore my glasses.
With the orthodontist not far from my apartment, I went to the office on foot.
After walking for 15 minutes, I arrived at the orthodontist's office with a lot of stress.
The gilded plates placed next to the entrance door of the building mentioned four orthodontists, probably associates, including Dr. Gipsen.
I entered and introduced myself to the secretary behind the desk just in front of the entry door. She was a blond mid-length squared-cut-haired woman with brown eyes under glasses too, in her mid-30's, wearing a light yellow coat over a classy navy blue knee-length tight dress, with shiny flesh-colored tights and navy-blue 10 cm high heels pumps with a small platform (2 cm). She had a pretty good style.
- "Good evening Misshish (Mrs), I am Shuzhan (Suzan) Campbell, the shecratary of the orthodontisht offische, what can I do for you? Shlshlshl," she said.
I immediately noticed silver from her mouth when she spoke and heard this time a noticeable lisp and slurp, sometimes at the end of sentences. I could not see more because she talked without opening her mouth a lot.
- “Hi, I am Alecja Pacejka, I have an appointment with Dr. Gipsen at 7 P.M.”
- "Okay, Pleazh give me your healszhh coverage documentsh, szhe letter from your dentisht and take a shheat in szhe waiting room, shlshlshl," slurping again after the sentence.
I thanked her, gave her the documents and I went to the waiting room, telling myself she was very unlucky to have to endure such an orthodontic treatment, with metal and lisping, at her age. At least she worked in a better place to be treated, hoping at least her treatment could be shorter thanks to that. Everything in the office was recent and clean. There was one screen in the waiting room, presenting some information about orthodontics and the waiting time remaining for each doctor. I had to wait 10 minutes to see Dr. Gipsen.
There were 2 teenagers waiting separately, a boy and a girl, approximately 15 years old, both looking down quietly. I immediately saw the boy was wearing something with large straps around his head connected to a quite large metal wire placed in front of the lips and coming into his mouth. He stayed silent when I said "Hi."
The girl replied and smiled with her teeth, which were all covered by quite large metal brackets, like my girl friends in middle school. "Not surprising for her age," I said to myself.
There was also a chestnut half-length square-cut-haired woman, in her mid 40's, who was waiting too. She replied "hi" to me too, not letting me see her teeth. She was wearing a light beige skirt suit, with sheer flesh-coloured tights and beige peep-toe ankle 11.5 cm heeled boots with no platform. She was very classy. Anyway, because of her age, I said to myself she was probably a mother waiting for her child.
Suzan entered the room and said, "Mishish Collinsh." The lady stood up and smiled very confidently with her teeth, allowing us to see her teeth were also covered with metal brackets, like the teenage girl. She left the room saying, "Goodbye." I replied the same, a little shocked to see she was a patient too.
My stress suddenly went up and I began panicking after seeing everyone, including two women in their 30’s or 40’s, with metal dental appliances.
As far as I was concerned, I never considered metal braces as an option. If I really did need treatment, I wanted the least visible possible thing and especially no metal thing. I tried to take deep breaths to calm down, thinking there is no reason I could not have anything other than metal braces.
5 minutes later, Suzan came back in the waiting room and called, "Misshish Paschezhka," trying several times to pronounce it roughly correctly.
I stood up without saying anything and I followed her in the long corridor to the examination room. My heart was really pounding. She opened the door and I saw two women, sit on rolling chairs, finishing packing the material around the examination chair. The first one was a thin tall blonde-haired woman who was about 40 years old, hair strictly pulled back with a bun, wearing a white coat over a black mid-thigh length skirt suit with sheer and shiny black tights and very high-heeled black peep-toe pumps, around 11.5 cm with no platform. Her feet were very arched in those shoes. The second one was a brown half-length square-haired woman who is about 30 years old and 1.60 m tall, wearing a light blue coat over a white knee-length skirt with sheer white tights and white sneakers.
Suzan introduced me, with the same difficulties pronouncing my name. The tall blonde woman stood up, saying curtly, without any smile, “Hi, I am Dr. Olivia Gispen and this is Stacey Stuart, my assistant.” I noticed when she was talking, her teeth were covered with metal brackets too, but no lisp at all. However, she seemed to be very confident and showed no intention to hide them at all. The assistant greeted me with a head gesture and smiled but did not open her mouth. I first was surprised Dr. Gipsen was a woman. I do not know why but I was convinced she was a man. And I was especially surprised that she wore braces. As an orthodontist with her age, I could have thought the braces thing, if she had needed them, was over for a long time.
Immediately, the doctor told me to sit in the chair and, just after a few words from me about the reason for my visit, she asked me to open my mouth, which I did.
She asked Stacey to put in a cheek retractor, which she did gently, and began to examine me after adjusting the light. She said to Stacey different medical terms and numbers. Stacey was filling in the information on the computer.
After that, she told Stacey to remove the cheek retractor.
She looked at the letter and X-rays and notes from Dr. Bortmann for a few minutes.
She left the room, leaving me alone with Stacey. I asked Stacey if Dr. Gipsen was always so curt. She replied briefly, “Yesh, but shhe’zh very good in what shhe doezh, shlshlshl.” Even if she spoke a little, I noticed metal things on her teeth too and I heard a lisp similar to Suzan, also slurping at the end of the sentence.
Still one more adult with metal braces. I believed there was no other kind of treatments like invisible trays or ceramic brackets in this office.
Dr. Gipsen came back 10 minutes after and told me curtly: "So, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is you need to start orthodontic treatment as soon as possible if you don’t want your toothaches to get worse. If you agree with the treatment, I will correct your malocclusion and it should be over after this treatment.”
- “Oh, such a shame, maybe the good news is this treatment can be slight and barely visible, with non-invasive appliances?” I replied
- “No, the good news is your healthcare insurance is pretty good and will cover nearly totally the cost of the treatment, leaving you only 300£ to pay for all the treatment duration, retention device included, instead of 3,500£,” she said.
- “Okay, good news, but what kind of treatment can I have? Would it be possible for that cost to have invisible trays or lingual braces? Not sure I want ceramic braces because some people could see I wear braces,” I said.
- “This won’t be a problem because I don’t work with invisible trays or ceramic braces because they are less accurate and quite fragile. Anyway, invisible trays are not adapted to treat your case. I avoid treatment with lingual braces because of the numbers of problems created for gums, during and after the treatment, not counting the discomfort of such a treatment, but this is not the point because classical treatments can be uncomfortable too,” she replied.
- “So, what kind of treatment?” I asked.
- “With traditional metal braces which are the most effective treatment,” she said.
- “Metal braces, the words are launched”, I scarily thought.
