I had braces. Twice. And lots of other things, too: tooth positioners, head gear, jaw expanders, Herbst appliances, jaw surgery, the list goes on and on. So it is not out of naïveté that I made the choice to pursue orthodontia for my special needs 13-year-old son, Rojo.

The first person that said, “His teeth aren’t that bad,” I wanted to kill. No, they aren’t that bad, but they are crooked, don’t line up, and his bite is all skewed to one side. He has what they call a cross-bite, and I see it with every word he speaks, every bite he chews and every time he laughs his wonderful laugh. 

It was bugging me.

And so it was that I took him to the orthodontist over a year ago. This orthodontist had done my daughter’s braces a few years ago, as well as the second set I had as an adult. We’d long been in touch that Rojo, would need special considerations, and there was a very real possibility he’d never let us close enough to his mouth to get in there and apply a single drop of glue, let alone an entire set of brackets. Tactile defensiveness, and all that.

“Let’s just take this really slowly,” was his answer. So we went to their office many times over the last several months. We started with just pictures, advanced to x-rays, and eventually he allowed them to take impressions. I knew if they could get him to bite into goo and let them yank it off after it had set, we’d be in business.

We scheduled the day to put the braces on. We all sat round a table and looked at brackets on a model. We talked about what was involved in putting them on, how to care for them and what to avoid doing and eating while wearing the braces.

Never did the words “two years” come up.

I should have warned him, I guess. I couldn’t find the line between preparing him and potentially freaking him out. I didn’t know if he had enough sense of time to process “two years.” I soon found out.

I’d given him Advil before the braces were put on, and religiously every four hours after. I was determined to keep the pain down, at least the physical pain. I think it was the emotional pain that was the hardest to watch, though.

He got the braces on in the morning, we were home by noon. I’d scheduled a friend to come over and play, someone he’d really looked forward to seeing, a “typical” that gets it in a big way. That helped to distract him, but I hated myself as his swollen lips refused to move with any fluidity, held stiff by the pain and sensory bombardment going on in his poor little mouth. The mouth that “didn’t look that bad” to most people.

Rojo’s friend left at 3:00 and we turned on the TV to have some downtime. Around 4:00 I went outside to take out the trash, when I came back in he was standing in the kitchen in tears. “When am I going to get these braces off?” He asked. My heart sunk as I said, “In two years, honey.” Then his tears turned to sobs and the snot began to run from his nose. It’s important to note that the boy does not cry. The boy is happy. The boy has a pain tolerance off the chart and has never so much as said “ow.”

“I cannot live for two years without my Twizzlers. I cannot live for two years without Gummi Worms. I cannot live for two years without chewing off my fingernails. I cannot do this.” Just then the phone rang, Caller ID told me it was the orthodontist calling, so I picked up.

“How’s Rojo doing?” he asked.

“You can probably hear him in the background, “ I said, “he’s not doing very well. The fact that this is for two years has just sunk in.”

“Well, it might be a rough weekend, but call me on Monday if things don’t get better.”

I said I would, and we hung up. I looked at Rojo, his mouth had to be in agony but it was his spirit that looked irreparable.

I’d broken my boy’s spirit for what, vanity? Certainly not his, he never even glances in the mirror and it recently occurred to me he might not actually know what he looks like.

Friends tried to cheer me up, “Let’s face it, looks are important in this culture,“ one said. Another offered, “You just want him to have a beautiful smile.”

I still felt like shit.

He didn’t eat for nearly 24 hours and we had to withhold TV until he agreed to sip a few ounces of water through a straw, just so the night didn’t end with a trip to the ER.

It’s been four days now, and we’re through the woods. He’s moving his mouth freely, back to eating his usual foods, albeit we’re cutting them in tiny pieces and very little chewing is required, but he’s going to make it.

If I’m brutally honest with myself, I just want him to go through one damn phase of life when everyone else his age is going through it, too.

Just one.