PHYSICS AND BIG LIPS | Malavika Eby
My oversized smile, displaying all thirty-two of my bunny teeth, was uncharacteristically hidden away, swept under a half-anxious, half — “can’t wait to get this over with”—frown. Dozens of smiling children’s photos lined the clinic walls, with no bunny teeth in sight. What were they all smiling about? (More importantly, why hadn’t they picked me to be up there, yet?)
The kids were all fixed to perfection, by the miracle performer and genius, Dr. Bradley Cheng—our town’s esteemed orthodontist. I was in year three or four of a journey to “make myself beautiful,” which was at least what I was told an orthodontist could help me with.
“Aren’t I already beautiful?” I always asked.
“Yes, but think how much more beautiful you’ll be with straight teeth!” my parents replied each time, cheerful as ever.
It would’ve probably been smarter to stop asking the question altogether than to hurt my own feelings by trying to decipher whether this reply was closer to a compliment or an insult.
“Mimi? Dr. Cheng is ready to check you now!” Tracy, the orthodontic assistant announced.
I grimaced. I’m not sure which one of my parents decided it would be appropriate to tell my orthodontist’s office to call me by my nickname, which only my family members used for me.
“Guess you’re part of the family too now, Trace,” I thought to myself sarcastically, walking into blinding lights and a room full of reclining exam chairs, also known as the seats of suffering (“SoS”). I looked at my reflection in the exam room mirror, swishing mouthwash around my metallic mouth, and wondering again for the trillionth time why I was doing this. “Open wide!”
Every time I’m here, I have a different torture device installed in my mouth to be inspected, critiqued, and praised—on a lack of progress, an accomplishment of progress, looking great, looking the same, blah-blah-blah. First, it was these crayon-colored plastic bits called “spacers,” wedged tightly between my stubborn teeth to create gaps. Then, it was the god-awful rubber bands that stretched tight from my top teeth to my bottom teeth, clamping my mouth shut, and my conversations and smiles along with that. Next, there were braces—tiny jails for my innocent teeth. I went to bed every night dreaming I could rip them right off with my bare hands, screaming in liberation.
Finally, now, as though braces weren’t enough, there were titanium screws drilled into the outer sides of my upper gums, violently anchoring my protesting overbite back into submission with more rubber bands. Yeah… you read that right. Not to mention, they gave me at least eight anesthetic injections in my gums to first install the screws; for an intensely needle-phobic kid, there was no greater agony.
How did things get this far? Naturally, my family and I were horrified by the idea of getting this treatment from the moment it was first suggested. Still, we eventually agreed, thinking, “Logically, who could make a better decision about our care than our professionally-trained orthodontist himself?”
Dr. Cheng was a medium-sized, middle-aged Asian man with a shaven face that I’d only seen a couple of times. He greeted us with a mask, and I was already in the SoS by then, where—before I knew it—his purple gloved fingers were deep in my mouth, feeling up my teeth, while he interrogated me on how often I flossed. Typical. I mumbled gurgled nonsense, eyes squeezed tight, wondering why he was asking me open-ended questions that necessitated talking when my tongue was sequestered to the floor of my mouth, crowded by his trespassing hands.
“Looks good!” he declared. “The teeth are moving to where they should be. We’ll keep things how they are, and check back again in six weeks.” Visit over.
Okay, no new devices installed—this appointment was a win for me. I sat up, ready to leave.
My mom stepped forward, forehead scrunched, eyes inspecting me with equal fervor as Dr. Cheng. “It doesn’t look like Mira’s bottom teeth are really moving inward. They’re still jutting out. Can’t we do something there?”
Thanks, Mom. Dr. Cheng stared at me and rolled his chair closer.
“Her bottom teeth aren’t going to go inward,” he said, upon a couple seconds of inspection. Then, to my horror, he moved his hand toward my face to grab—not my teeth, no—but my bottom lip with his horrid purple latex fingers, still slimy from my saliva. My lip sandwiched in his hand, he began tugging at my mouth in a demonstration to my mom, who just stared quizzically. “See? It just looks like her bottom jaw is sticking out, because she has big lips! Her teeth are fine. This is just how she looks, because her lips stick out, not her teeth or her jaw!”
Problem solved, thanks for the visual demo, doc! What the hell?
He let go of my lips, and casually rolled back away, as though his foremost duty and privilege as a respected orthodontist was to do whatever he wanted as long as it was mouth-related. No one better tell me I’m overreacting, because when I signed up to get my teeth straightened, I didn’t know that came with a contract to relinquish control of my mouth and offer it up, wide-open, (“Say aaaaaaaaaaaaa!”) to be violated every six weeks, year after year, with screws, fingers, pliers, scissors and plastic bands.
My mom had more to say, contrary to my very desperate eye-gesturing toward the exit. “Does Mira really need the screws? I’m not sure if they’re working, and she said they hurt.”
Dr. Cheng rolled his chair a couple of feet to the countertop, where his appointment notes were displayed on a flat computer screen. His eyes glued to the screen, hand moving the mouse, he said, “The screws are doing their job, Mrs. Mathur. They’re attached to her front teeth and anchoring them backward so she loses that overbite. And they shouldn’t be hurting that much, so she can take Advil as needed.”
My mom wasn’t pleased with his defense of the screws. “I feel like her overbite is the same as it was several months ago when she first got the screws,” she said, gesturing to my face. “See?”
Dr. Cheng stood up to face my mom and pulled off his mask, perhaps to give meaning to the term face-to-face confrontation. No trace of pleasantry—artificial or genuine—lingered in his gaze. “When the screws pull her teeth back in this direction,” he spelled out, pointing at my teeth, “Her other teeth move in the opposite direction, to the back. It’s physics, Mrs. Mathur. You can ask your husband—he would know, he’s an engineer.”
This was my mom’s “What the hell?” moment.
Mustering up saintly patience I knew I didn’t have myself, she tried once more: “Yes, I understand, but—”
Dr. Cheng interjected. “It’s physics, trust me! Her teeth are turning out as they should be. We’ll see you in six weeks!”
We walked out past the rows upon rows of smiling children, whom I was beginning to suspect were paid quite a dandy sum for their advertising services. My mom and I got into our car, looked at each other, and screeched out of the parking lot. The countdown reset: six more weeks of peace and dignity till the next SoS session.
Malavika Eby is an undergraduate junior at Swarthmore College, studying Medical Anthropology and Psychology. She holds a passion for reading and writing about patient-provider communication, trust, and mutual understanding, with the aim to lift up patients' voices, autonomy, and lived knowledge about their bodies in the biomedical context. Eby is a trained birth doula and plans to pursue training in obstetrics and gynecology following medical school at Thomas Jefferson University, which she will begin in 2025.