On the verge of losing her teeth, Jean Le Bec travels abroad to find a solution.
Born and bred in Brooklyn New York, Jean Le Bec is a Moth StorySlam champion who has been featured on Risk, Yum's The Word, Surprise Stories, Take Two, NY Story Exchange, Two Truths And A Lie, Tell It Brooklyn, City Stories, Word Up, Look Who's Talking, and City Stories, as well as podcasts Risk, Singleling, Unhireable, and Tall Tales In The Big City and a week-long artist residency on Governor's Island 2016. She's presently working on a Solo Show.
This story originally aired on Nov. 17, 2017, in an episode titled “Reflection.”
Story Transcript
I’m dreaming. My teeth are flying out of my mouth. They soar high above my head, twirling and swirling. I try to grab them, I try to reach them. I jump, but I can’t. They dangle in front of me, taunting me. Finally, I grab one, but it melts in my hand.
I wake up sweating. Something is wrong. My tongue is pushing against a tooth on my lower-right jaw. It’s loose. It is so loose that I reach in and easily pull it out. I slip out of bed, careful not to wake my husband, Marcel, and run into the bathroom and I grin in the mirror. Damn, you can see it -- a big gaping hole.
I shove bare feet into snow boots and I throw my coat on over pajamas and I walk down Fifth Avenue to the pharmacy on Ninth Street. It’s 5:00 a.m. and it’s snowing. The pharmacy is empty, just a couple of people picking up their prescriptions.
I walk quickly up and down the aisle of toothpaste and toothbrushes and dental floss. Finally, I see it. A small blue container of dental cement.
I rush home. I sit on the edge of the toilet and I force a huge gob of the stuff into the hole and I glue my tooth back in. Everyday my tooth falls out and every day I glue it back.
Marcel pleas, “Please just go to the goddamn dentist.”
It’s our daily fight. I promise him I will. I say, “I will, I will,” but I don't.
I’m afraid of the dentist. I hate the dentist. I’m always scared of that moment when the dentist looks in my mouth and can see all my sins. The years when I was a dancer and I starved myself until my gums bled and smoking too much and drinking too much and not flossing enough and not brushing enough. Then I feel so shitty about myself after every visit that I don’t go back and then too much time has passed and I’m too embarrassed to go back.
But I have to go. I stopped really smiling. I have this kind of weird half smile and I eat on only one side of my mouth. So I go.
I am gripping Marcel’s hand as the dentist looks at my CAT scan. And I feel naked as his fingers expertly fly over the x-ray of my mouth. Finally, he turns to me and he says, “Your teeth are no longer viable. There's too much bone loss. They will continue to loosen and they will fall out. maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but they will. I’m recommending that you be proactive. Extract all of your teeth and have dentures.”
Dentures? I can’t breathe. Not me. No. No. No, I promise. No. My mother had dentures. She never let us see her without her teeth, but one Saturday morning very early, I’m eight years old, her door is open. I hover in the doorway. She's sitting on the edge of the bed. She's forty-five years old, but she looks a hundred. Her face has collapsed. And I watch as she reaches into a glass and grimaces as she adjusts her dentures into place.
And I promised myself that would never be me, and now it’s me. I’m covered with shame and run out of the office. It’s cold and it’s dark. Marcel and I brace ourselves against the wind and we walk up East 24th Street. He puts his arm around me and he pulls me close and he says, “I’m here. I’m here.” And I cling to him and let him carry me to the F Train.
Every night I search the web. I look at dental videos obsessively as though they're pornography. Finally, I type in the words “innovative dentures”. A name pops up. Dr. Paulo Malo in Portugal. A dentist who has designed a groundbreaking procedure where dentures are actually attached to implants never to be removed. And Dr. Malo has a clinic in Rutherford, New Jersey specializing in his technique.
Marcel and I go to Rutherford, New Jersey. My exam is quick and efficient, and I’m a candidate for this procedure. I find out that the cost of this procedure is seventy thousand dollars. Yes, none of it covered by insurance. We can’t afford this.
My teeth have become like the other woman in our marriage because it’s all we talk about. We talk about it constantly. I have to get to the other side of this.
One morning, I’m just skimming through a travel magazine and I come across an article called dental medical tourism. Never heard of it. I read about these people who have traveled to foreign countries to have dental work done or medical work done that they can’t afford to do in the United States. And the article lists all these organizations that help international patients. And they list countries that are recommended, approximate costs. And I know, I know that I have to do this.
I research two doctors in Costa Rica who have been doing the procedure that Dr. Malo designed for many years. It’s their main specialty. They're highly recommended and the cost is manageable and, as afraid as I am about having surgery done in a foreign country, I am haunted by those words, “Your teeth will continue to loosen.”
So Marcel and I fly to San Jose, Costa Rica to meet and consult with Dr. Freer and Dr. Saenz. We are in the Hospital Catolica. We are on the fourth floor sitting on a really long couch. Murals, beautiful, large murals line the hallways. Nuns and nurses just kind of swirl by. Marcel is really happy. He's cheerfully talking to a couple sitting next to us in Spanish. My heart is beating so loudly that I can hear it in my ears. My hands are so sweaty and I keep trying to straighten the wrinkles out of my white linen dress. I jump every time they call a name. It’s 12:05 and I think if they don’t call me in one more minute, I’m out of here. I’m leaving.
Then the door opens and Dr. Freer comes out to greet me. Dr. Freer is a lot younger than I imagined. He's tall and he's lanky. He's got black, curly hair. He's really quick to smile. He would fit right into Williamsburg. He would.
Dr. Saenz is older. He speaks slowly and he listens carefully.
They ask me questions. I talk. I cry. They hand me tissues or a match. They explain the operation to me in great detail. It will be a five-hour surgery. The first thing that’s going to happen is they will extract all my teeth. Then four Zimmer screws, made in Germany, will be implanted in my upper jaw and four Zimmer screws will be implanted in my bottom jaw. A bridge of beautiful teeth will be attached never to be removed.
I’m listening but I get really, really stuck on the idea of Zimmer screws that are made in Germany because I’m Jewish. And growing up, my mother boycotted anything made in Germany. I’m thinking, Oh, my God, a head of German screws. She didn’t talk to my Aunt Sue for two weeks because she bought Gulden’s Mustard.
It’s 9:00 a.m. It’s the morning of my operation. It’s March 12th, a Thursday, 2015. I’m being prepped. The anesthesiologist says, “Okay, sweetie. Take a deep breath,” and she inserts the IV.
She is beautiful and she is wearing really sexy high heels and I say to her, “You're beautiful and you're wearing sexy high heels. I want your shoes.” And she laughs. I’m so glad she laughs because I want her to like me and bring me to the other side, put me to sleep.
The room is getting busy. They are ready to begin. Dr. Saenz comes over to me, he holds my hand and he said, “Jean, I just want you to know that when you wake up you won’t have any teeth. But I don't want you to be afraid because it is temporary.”
I slide my tongue around my teeth and say goodbye.
Just as I’m about to fall asleep, I feel this pain between my shoulder blades. It’s kind of like a gas pain, like one of those lost farts. And I think, “Oh, God. Please, don’t let me be that American that farted during surgery.”
It’s over. I hear voices. Dr. Freer helps me into the wheelchair and he says, “Jean, it’s perfect. It went perfectly.”
My lips are so swollen I have over hundreds of stitches in my mouth and I’m so grateful when the nurse slips a surgical mask over my face because I don't want Marcel to see me this way.
Marcel is wheeling me down the corridor of the hospital and at the elevator our eyes meet. I am so happy I have this mask on, and he looks at me and he says, “Babe, babe. Your hair really looks beautiful today.”
It will be three days before my teeth are attached. I miss my teeth. My face has collapsed. Words come out like bubbles. I spill soup like a baby. I look a hundred years old. My face has collapsed. I spend hours, tedious hours in Dr. Freer’s office because meticulous measurements have to be taken in order for them to reconstruct my mouth.
I say, “I look a hundred years old.”
He tries to make me laugh. He tells silly jokes. “What’s the difference between a toothbrush and a teethbrush?” He sings Beatles songs with a Spanish accent.
I say, “I look a hundred years old.”
He says, “No. You look like newborn, waiting for beautiful teeth.”
It’s finally, finally the day of the attachment. The pressure is unbearable. The pain is unbearable. And just when I think I cannot bear this one more minute, it’s over. Dr. Freer hands me a mirror and he says, “It’s perfect, Jean. It’s perfect.”
I looked in the mirror and my face is back. And I smile, I really, really, really smile, and my mother’s face is in the mirror. Her face is in my face and we’re both really, really smiling. And it is perfect and it’s beautiful. I’m really, really smiling. Thank you.