Personal Narrative: The Loss Of My Baby Teeth

As a child, I was always excited to lose my baby teeth—from the first sign of a wiggling tooth to the short-lived pain of yanking it out. Losing a tooth brought me a sense of pride and accomplishment, and the Tooth Fairy never failed to deliver monetary compensation. I learned the tricks of the trade fairly quickly, and before I knew it, I had become an expert at pulling my teeth out. My teeth kept coming out, and the money kept coming in; I was a happy kid, smiling out from ear to ear.
My mother took me to the dentist every four months for my cleaning and checkup, and after x-rays and "thorough" examinations, the dentists always concluded, "His teeth are perfect!" However, one day, the x-rays showed an extremely unusual occurrence: my adult left front tooth (#9, the dentists called it) that was still in my gums and was supposed to replace my baby left front tooth was growing upside-down—toward my nose instead of into my mouth.
“If we had found this out a bit earlier, we might have been able to flip adult tooth #9, but if we did it now, it could cause serious problems for the surrounding
Not only did my predicament leave me with an awkward 9-millimeter gap in the middle of my smile, but it also made it harder to bite into certain foods that I used to enjoy eating. On top of that, at the dental clinic, I felt more like a rare case study rather than a human patient. I eventually adjusted to my new life and learned to deal with it for another three years. Before entering high school, now that they had completed working on my teeth, my orthodontists instructed me to wear a retainer to prevent my teeth from moving out of place. The day I received my retainer is a day for which I will be forever grateful. My orthodontists were able to put a false tooth inside my retainer where #9 should have been so that, as long as I had my retainer on, my smile would look normal—all teeth