“Teeth,” A Narrative

The following memoir piece titled, “Teeth,” is an excerpt from my final project, Breaking the Silence Behind the Doors of my Family and Body: Wearing Words, for my Disability Narratives course.

Teeth

My heart thumps and pounds just like an intruder breaking down the door to steal the jewels inside, and my hands shake out of my control—it is like some stranger has detached my own hands and reattached unwanted hands onto my arms—almost a Frankenstein’s creature type of reattachment—and I cannot seem to string words together to speak coherent sentences because my mind is clouded with panic, and I have no control over my body.

Panic rushes in without any sort of notice at the wrong time, always. Anxiety has followed me from when I was young to now. My most prominent memories where I hated how I lost control over my body are stored in boxes littered in my mind.

2015

The clinking of metal tools hitting each other, the indescribable smell of a dentist’s office lingering in the air, all hit me when I enter and sit in the dental chair. The chair is hard but not uncomfortable. It is the day I finally get all four of my wisdom teeth out. I know it is a small operation and not an extensive surgery. I remind myself to stay calm and that it will go by quickly. The oral surgeon’s assistant comes in asking, “How are you feeling today?” which I answer with the most common answer, “I’m good.” She sticks circular patches on my stomach to prepare for the operation, punctures my skin to put the IV in my vein, and wraps the blue cuff around my right arm to take my blood pressure. Then, it happens. The cuff tightens, and I feel my nerves acting up. Thoughts swarm in my head: what happens if the numbers are too high; what if my heart is beating too fast? From her reaction, I can tell something is wrong. The worried look on her face scares me. She says, “It’s too high.” She leaves the room.

She comes back with the surgeon who asks, “Are you okay?” I answer, “Yes.” I know this happens to me, but I feel fine. They give me a sedative through my IV. They continue to take countless blood pressure tests, but the numbers keep rising. Sitting in the grey, firm chair, I close my eyes because if I look at the beeping monitor, I feel more and more afraid. What if there is something wrong? I feel trapped. I do not want to move because it might spike my anxiety levels. I did not want to move at all. I hear the doctor speaking to the assistants, “This isn’t normal, the numbers are concerning.” All this talk does not help. But I cannot find the strength to speak; I forget my words.

The assistant sits down next to me and attentively says, “If you were my daughter, I wouldn’t want to continue with the surgery.” I do not know what to respond with, and I am uncomfortable. My mom comes to get me, and I leave with a bandage over the spot where the IV was. Looking back now, I understand that the assistant was trying to be helpful, but I could not have expected them to read my mind and understand how my anxiety contributed to the whole situation. I could not have expected them to be aware of how their towering bodies over me made me feel even more frightened. Frightened at how their faces looked and frightened at what was happening to my body. I knew my heart pounded before, but I never saw the blood pressure numbers before. It was much to take in. The doctor and his assistants were just not asking the right questions.

The sporadic beeping of the monitor continues like the diegetic music of my anxiety.

2016

Fiery red and orange leaves pepper the ground, and the coldish wind chills my body. It is a brand-new city, a brand-new dental. As we open the doors into the new dental office, it feels like every other dentist I have ever been to. My siblings and I come in with my mother, and the receptionist spits out her words: “do you even have insurance?” We are in unknown territory being watched. When I am finally called back, I enter into the room—it smells too clean, a mixture of dental fluoride and metal. I awkwardly sit on the grey chair lined with thin paper, and they begin cleaning my teeth. I hear the two white hygienists chattering away in conversation. One hygienist condescendingly utters, “I’m surprised she has sealants on her teeth.”

After all these years, I remember verbatim what she had said, but I had to research how to spell “sealants.” I was not certain how to spell that word, which had been lingering in the back of my mind. I didn’t let that memory get filtered out as I slept each night. Their comments were demeaning. Their eyes were ice-cold just like the inside of the dentist room.

Meanwhile, someone who works at the dental practice speaks with my mother, bombarding her with superfluous sayings, “we pride ourselves in giving the best treatment possible,” “I don’t know if you are used to that,” “we have the best doctors in the nation,” and so. His voice was humid and uncomfortable. He drones on and on like a mosquito trying to pounce and feed off the blood in our bodies. I know my mother’s kind demeanor; I knew she would not have wanted to start an argument. It was him against her. I wish I was there, at least; she would not have had to sit through that alone.

One of the hygienists nips my tongue and does not acknowledge it, whether it was by accident or not, it does not matter. The foreign, cold metal tools in my mouth; the saliva pooling in my mouth; the foreign hands inside in my mouth, all silence me. I do not tell her what she did because she was the best in the nation, and who I was I to speak up to authority. I know what I looked like to them: just a shy Asian girl. I have not tapped into this memory until now. I never put pen to paper until now. What I feel ashamed of is how I did not speak up in that moment. I played into their idea of Asian people being quiet and subservient because I did not say anything. What didn’t I? I felt belittled. I felt nervous. I did not stand up for myself. I am angry that my anxiety flooded in and prevented me from speaking up. Now, I refuse to remain silent. Even when my hands are shaking and my heart is pounding, I speak up even when every ounce of my body tells me to keep my lips sealed. Even when my body tells me that I cannot find the words to make sense. I will yell; I will scream; I will shout out that I can speak.

At least, that is what I wish would happen. But it is fine because the blank pages of my notebooks are my solace and written words are my comfort. When I sit down to write, my heartbeat calms down, my hands stop shaking, and I can coax my words back to me.

We never went back there. And my tongue heals.

I scrub my teeth clean of the residue of dentists who do not understand me. I take meticulous care of my teeth because my teeth work every day for me but cannot heal themselves. I heal my teeth by brushing my teeth, flossing, and using mouthwash. All to try to heal the scars of how misunderstood I felt in the dentist offices. Sometimes, I cannot control my anxiety which has a mind of its own, but I can control how I take care of my body—how I take care of my teeth. I take care of my voice through deciding when I want to speak. And when I don’t.