By Lee Thompson  Abstract:  This is the first-person narrative of a young woman’s pursuit of beauty and how it went awry.  Illness narratives come in three types: restitution, quest, and chaos.  Although she is still on a quest, there are aspects of chaos in this woman’s story.  Shame and humiliation are subtexts in patients’ stories, but physicians rarely hear them.  These emotions are not generally inquired about during the truncated medical encounter. All I wanted to have perfect teeth. In America, if you want to be beautiful, you have to have perfect white teeth. As I blindly pursued my goal, no one ever informed me that whitening my teeth could … Continue reading →