Mind the Gap

So much has happened, and all of it has been too important

By Thomas Feng

December 10^th, 2023

Mind the gap.

I haven't written here in a long time.

So much has happened and all of it has been too important to put into a single coherent set of words for you and I to give it meaning.

I open at the close.

It was February 2022 and life was returning again to the streets of Melbourne.

We allowed ourselves to dance all night while our neighbour Mike played keys for soul-funk queen Kylie Auldist at the Night Cat.

The overwhelming rush from being out sparked a new energy in a desire to organise.

Organise. That was my word for the year. I would finally organise space and time for my health, my goals, my work, my thoughts for Michelle and I, my community. I would finally organise my self. This was the year.

The next day, in a suburban, amateur basketball league, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone whom my therapist named Captain Elbows, elbowed me straight in the face. Suddenly two of my front teeth were on the court. My mouth was full of blood but I felt nothing. The nurse cleaned me up and told me I was taking the situation well. She grieved and sobbed for me. It's one of the most horrific injuries she's seen in her many years here.

I called my friend Chris, who raced over as soon as he could and took me to the Alfred, where a dentist, who looked at my mouth through a video call, said I should be fine if I go to the dental hospital the next morning.

“Keep it in milk, go to the dental hospital in the morning and they should be able to stick it straight back in.”

Alright. Sounded easy enough. I would go to sleep. Wake up the next morning. Go to the dental hospital. Everything would be fine.

The next morning I arrived at the dental hospital the first minute it opened and got shoved into an emergency bed. I sat on the chair and recline back. My gaze fixed on the white ceiling surrounding a surgical light on my mouth. A dental surgeon appears in a white coat, puts retractor gags in my mouth to keep it open, has one look and instantly sighs.

“This isn’t good. Has someone told you?”

No. Someone hasn’t told me.

So it is with the gentlest and most sympathetic of words that the dental surgeon broke the news that my teeth were never coming back. That what I was told at the Alfred was wrong. That my mouth would require a bunch of antibiotics to heal, a series of surgeries and specialists, and a lifetime of dental visits.

I cried a river of tears in the dental chair, and wondered what the fuck I did to deserve this. And then I told the dental surgeon to operate on whatever he needs to, to make any and every recommendation to a specialist, because I just wanted to get this ordeal dealt with as quickly as possible and get back on with my life again.

I left the dental hospital bawling in shock, with a manila folder of recommendations and next steps. I jumped on the Lygon St tram, carrying my two dead teeth in a plastic sandwich seal bag. My already wonky teeth were seriously wonked out of whack now. My mouth and lips were covered in lacerations from my ricocheted teeth.

How do you make sense of something which doesn’t make sense?

A lot of things in this world don’t make sense. It doesn’t have to make sense.

That’s been my way through. The only way is through.

I cancelled any and all plans, unless they were to do with my teeth. I went to countless appointments until a plan was made. I booked seeing my therapist - thrice.

I tried to see through the ridiculousness of my fears that my relationships with friends and Michelle would fall apart because of two stupid front teeth, which Captain Elbows elbowed out of me in a freak accident, and slowly, gently, kindly, I let go of as much shame as I could. I minded the gap, and remembered to laugh and cry and be silly and to let life go on, even if I felt like it was going on with too many visits to the dentists.

So I open at the close because fast forward to today, after an almost two year long, slow crawl through this tunnel of 40+ dental appointments, with a team of three different specialist dentists, and multiple surgeries, I am close to closing this chapter.

And I feel ready to start writing here more regularly again.

But I make no promises for now, and I hope you will mind the gap.

Thomas

P.S - Acknowledgements and a cuss

I recognise my own enormous privilege and access to resources to be in a position to have my mouth fixed to begin with.

I am lucky to have had dozens of days of paid sick leave, and workplaces which have allowed me to use them in their time of need.

I have had so many people support me along the way, whether it was being angry for me, donating to my crowdfunder when there were far more worthwhile causes, or by just being there for me throughout the many stops and starts.

Michelle, you have held me along the way through thick and thin.

Finally, a big fuck you to dentists in Australia for monetising and profiting off the health and look of people’s mouths. Dental care should be public and free. Our mouths are essential.