A dangerous, vile monstrosity has just recently been thrust upon me. To make matters worse, for some reason, my parents actually insist I asked for it. And the name of this monster? Braces.

Almost two weeks ago, I went in to see the orthodontist so he could put braces on my upper teeth. I expected it to be horrible, but, aside from the long wait, it wasn't all too bad. Of course, immediately afterwards, I absolutely hated it.

I also had an expander placed between two of my molars. This has been the primary cause of all my agony, and I expect it will continue to be such for the six months I will have it. For a while, I had incredible difficulty swallowing. The thing was so low it got in the way of my tongue, and I simply could not swallow. So, for a while I was stuck eating just soft foods or taking very small bites... Because I had to put the food on my tongue, then put the tongue behind the expander and swallow from there. I don't know if there would have been an easier way to overcome the problems, but that's how I did it.

Fast forward from there to last Saturday. For those of you who don't know, an expander has to be turned with a special tool for it to work. My mom has to turn it twice a day - once in the morning and once at night. (The first day, she couldn't do it and we had to go back to the orthodontist and get somebody to show her how again...) Well, for whatever reason, the expander chose Saturday to actually do something aside from causing me problems with swallowing... It decided to cause pain. Oh, and within three hours of turning it - while I watched TV - a rift appeared in the roof of my mouth (yay breaking palates), my two front teeth inexplicably moved apart by about a centimeter, and my far left incisor dropped down like a centimeter (I had it pulled around the age of four, and the permanent tooth did not come in until after all of the others for some reason... So it was higher up because there wasn't enough room for it.). It was great fun, I tell you.

Finally, it's a complete and utter annoyance to play my trumpet with braces. Oh, and a pain too. Can't forget pain. The range of notes I can play has been diminished to the point where I can't play much of my music (so much for finally being on first part for marching band >>), and they're causing ulcers to form in my mouth. Even if I put wax on them (and trust me, I am...), the ulcers are there and always bothering me.

They want me to go two years with these (and I haven't even gotten the bottom ones yet)? I can hardly go two weeks!

~|ET|~