This past "House" episode was great. The House/Cuddy and House/Wilson dynamics were back in full swing, and the medical mystery of the week was interesting. Lyme disease. Who knew?
But as much as I love the show and how audacious Dr. House (Hugh Laurie) can be, I was still uncomfortable throughout, because I've been there. Well, not there, exactly. But I know what it's like to be ugly, to have a facial deformity, and to be just hanging on for that corrective surgery.
The deformity was that my jaw joints dissolved slowly over a period of several years, so that when I looked in the mirror I never recognized myself. My face was in a state of constant, gradual change. I had less and less of a chin every month -- it just kind of fell back into itself. But it all happened so slowly that no one could put a finger on it: not my orthodontist, not my oral surgeon, not my doctors or my parents or even myself. So I was just ugly.
By the time I left for college, my top and bottom teeth were so far apart I couldn't eat sandwiches or lettuce or anything flat. The only teeth that touched together were my very back molars -- so of course they did all the chewing. And I couldn't chew with my mouth closed; I couldn't even keep my mouth closed at all.
I started having breathing difficulties, especially when I was lying down, so I had to sleep propped up on six pillows. This was explained when I met with a new oral surgeon, who said that when my joints dissolved, my chin moved back and took the base of my tongue with it. So my tongue was cutting off the air flow until the passage was only 2 millimeters. No wonder I couldn't breathe.
I was sent from surgeon to surgeon, each promising me surgery to fix the medical problems, but what I really wanted was to look like a normal person. The trouble was, moving my chin back into place and giving me new joints was such a complicated procedure that each surgeon balked, sending me to his mentor.
It took years to find the right doctor. Years of appointments and canceled surgery dates. Years of hopes dashed again and again and again.
Finally, I ended up with the top of the line: the doctor who had developed the prosthetic joints screwed into my jaw today. But I still couldn't let myself believe it would really happen. I still couldn't dare to hope. I'd been let down so many times that, as we flew down to Texas three days before the operation, I turned to my mom and said, "You know, I still won't believe it until it's over."
She looked at me and said, "Believe it, honey. We're on our way. It's going to happen."
Then I had a scare with my pre-op bloodwork. Oops, I was anemic. They gave my mom the news over the phone, and I could tell by her tone that something was wrong. "I told you!" I cried from across the hotel room. "I told you! I knew something would happen!"
So watching the poor kid on "House" this week go through a greatly magnified version of what I went through -- the hope and the disappointment, again and again -- was a little tough.
Happily, though, we both ended up having our corrective surgeries and looking the better for it. At least, until I got an infection in my plastic chin implant, requiring its removal four years after the initial surgery. Now I only look half as good as I did for a few years there. But still a sight better than once upon a time.
Plus, I can breathe and eat again, and that's pretty good too.