I thought it really was about time I did a teeth update.

So I’ve been going in to trial some teeth to see how they will look. A couple of weeks ago I went in ready to try some teeth on for size, I sat in the chair, and I put the teeth in. Now they don’t stay in on their own, I can’t talk or anything with them, but if I keep my teeth together then they stay in place. They gave me a hand-held mirror, which I sat on my lap as I put the teeth in, eventually putting it up in front of my face once they were in place and… well… I think watching this clip will give you an idea of how it went. This is an actual, exact re-enactment of how it went (must watch this before reading on)…

Yep. OK so they weren’t quite that bad, I slightly jest. But they were big. I felt quite strange. Actually it was quite demoralising, not going to lie. You pin all your hopes and dreams on looking a bit more normal with teeth and you see them and all you can think is ‘they’re not my teeth… Who’s teeth are they?’

Dwayne’s apparently.

I was clearly unhappy and the dentist and her assistant were telling me they looked good but I just didn’t feel right. She said ‘it’s probably just been so long that you’re used to seeing yourself without teeth and now having them there again seems weird. You’ve probably forgot what they looked like.’ Not a damn chance. ‘You’ve never had your teeth out and your face rebuilt’ snapped petulant teenage Jen who was lurking somewhere inside me. I felt bad saying it, but it’s true. It maybe seemed like the right thing for her to say but no, I don’t forget exactly what the teeth I have had for 30 years looked like just because I’ve been 9 months without them.

It was hard to tell how much of my dissatisfaction was just in general with the fact I’m going to look different now anyway no matter what, or whether they really were too big. But it felt like something worth fighting for. Although they told me big teeth are beautiful and they look fine, I was adamant that I needed smaller teeth. Well… I say adamant, if they were to tell me that smaller teeth wouldn’t work, I would learn to live with whatever I had to. But they agreed to try again and we booked in for me to go back the following week to try a size smaller. I didn’t feel great when I left the dentist surgery that day.

I worried of course that I wouldn’t like the smaller teeth either and I would have wasted their time and made a nuisance of myself. I almost feel like they’re a private practice and I’m a charity case (i.e. NHS), like they’re doing me a favour for treating me and I should just be grateful and do as I’m told. They don’t make me feel like that in any way, but I can’t help but have that thought in the back of my mind. I am so grateful to them for treating me, I know how lucky I am.

Anyway, cut to a week later. The weather had taken a turn for the worst, the day was cold, dark and rainy. The previous week had been sunny. Was London feeling my worries too? Mirroring my apprehension?

I sat in the chair again, held the mirror, put the teeth in, tentatively pulled the mirror up in front of me and smiled. Like… Smiled. Not just moved my lips back to reveal my teeth, I really smiled. They were my teeth. I felt relief wash over me. The dentist and assistant agreed, these were the ones. In fact the dentist said she was glad that we went for smaller teeth and that she has to remember that they’re my teeth. It’s a good point. Maybe the big teeth do look better on paper but it’s important for them to look good on me. That I feel comfortable.

She took a couple of photos and showed them to me. They were difficult to look at because it showed me how little of my face the teeth would actually fix, and how snarly I’m going to look, but hey. I’m going to have to come to terms with that eventually.

I should just interject here, someone said to me the other day ‘please don’t think I’m being an idiot, but didn’t they take moulds before surgery so that they would have something to base your teeth on?’ Not being an idiot, though I can see why you might think so for asking, you would think it would be the obvious thing to have done, but no. The dentists wanted moulds, but I guess it wasn’t something my surgeons had thought was an important thing to do before knocking my teeth out. I think in future it would be a bit better if somehow that process could be ironed out for any others going through a similar thing. It only takes a few minutes and would make such difference for the process later.

Now they’re starting to think about implants. They’re not confident they’ll be able to give me many, maybe a couple. But fingers crossed they’ll be able to get at least one in, because that will mean they’ll have something to anchor some dentures to. Otherwise they said they can look at implanting a piece of metal in my new top jaw and holding some dentures in using magnets. They’re aiming for surgery in Jan/Feb.

So here we are – angled and smiling, so it doesn’t look too bad…

I give you my trial teeth!