Who said getting a make over was easy?????

Oh my aching split lip!     4 plus hours yesterday afternoon in the dentist chair.....Man..is that guy a masochist or what???? He is a lovely guy, funny too. He was nice and made sure I had two horse injections of numbing agent in to the top gum line. Got out his buzz saw and promptly zapped away my old teeth.....THAT was the point of no return for me. I got a little sad, but was eager then to get on with it. There was the smell of burning flesh, the stench of enamel being burred away in a puffy white smoke up my nostrils. The water pike to help deaden the smoky powder went up my nostrils too, and down my face, my neck, my throat....gakkus attackus!
  Then there was blood...lots of blood.....aaaargh! He discovered one of my teeth had in fact, a lovely large cavity and the start of an abscess (yes, folks ...my auto-immune body attacking itself yet again!) So that was fun....He said, "Well, I will do the right side first coz we don't want pink teeth. If the blood gets into the epoxy it'll be my balls you take off!"
    I had a break for a short while sitting up, having a drink of water with my now mouthguard sized teeth. Lots of rough edges. He said, "No looking in any shiny reflective surfaces coz you will probably scream!" I honestly did not want to look if they felt as bad as they did, they must look worse!
   Head back further this time, we joked about yoga and it was a good thing I have learned the art of switching off and being elsewhere. That was untill he got out the metal files to do the between the teeth....Oh man! NOW I know what a punching bag feels like! So tight to get in between them, and then having my head lift up and down as he filed in between till they 'gave way' and were smooth.
  Never forgetting the whole time I am laying there with my mouth open as wide as can be....lips stretched as he worked his way around each tooth. All eight of them!  Teeth that is..not eight lips...tee hee.
   Then we were finished for the day....my face felt like someone had punched it through a car windscreen at high speed, and it looked it. Never imagined it would be like that!
   Then the moment of truth...the MIRROR........well, to say I was gob smacked (pun intended) would be an understatement. Did I cry and hug him like they do on Extreme Makeover? NO I did not. I just stared and thought, "That's not me." Do I like them? Probably not. He said to me that they aren't finished yet. I know that. Just having teeth so even and so white is not something I am used to.
   My son who is nearly 16, when I eventually dropped my jacket away from my mouth later that evening, said, "Holy *****! You look fantastic! Your'e an idiot to think you don't look good Mum!" I didn't take offence at his calling me an idiot...he just reacted! Typical dumb teenager!
   So, next Tuesday, I go back.. Dentist said for my to get used to the bite...might be high bits to let him know about. Said to have a look and decide if I wanted any trimmed shorter or flatter. He will put striations along them to make them look more natural and catch the light the way natural teeth do. He will also polish them to make them look shiny.  Already I can see two I don't like. I feel like Humphrey Bogart when he does his lip pulled back thing. Two teeth catch my upper lip and makes talking a little difficult.
     I guess it was something I have wanted to do for a very very long time. I know full well in the end I will look great. At over $6,000 (Australian) it is a big cost which I have trouble justifying. I buy my clothes at thrift stores coz I hate paying full price for rubbishy clothes at department stores. I rarely spend money on myself. Having grown up extremely poor, this is a huge undertaking for me. I also know that my identity is now changed. THAT is the hard bit to get my head around. I no longer look like me. My uneven teeth were me. Even though I didn't like them, they were me. My two big Bugs Bunny teeth in the front that had slightly rotated inwards, were me. That little chip on one tooth from when my baby head butted me by accident 18 years ago, was a good memory. The way I used to click my teeth together as a comfort thing, is now gone too.
As I said to my lovely dentist....I am just not used to being normal. My left side has a slight deformity, so all my left side teeth were much smaller than my right. After 46 years of accepting that, it's now all changed.
  It has been a very stressful few years, with the two surgeries, the near death in hosptial, the bush fires, finding the termites, my son being a pain in the proverbial....perhaps I wasn't ready for it.
  So was it worth sitting upside down like some yogi? Is it to my advantage to spend 6 grand when my house is being eaten alive by termites and making my house fall down? Hard to know. I suspect that once I get used to seeing my smile being fresher and my lip settles down I may well actually be really happy. But for now it is difficult to adjust to such a major change in my identity. I hate to think of how it must have felt for the lady who had her face ripped off and had a new one from a dead person put on...now THAT truly is an identity crises!
   I shall keep you all informed as I go along. Right now my glass of wine is empty!