J.D. found out at his last dental check-up that he needed some extensive dental work done (4 crowns/caps, 2 baby root canals, and 4 other fillings). Based on the fact that he was a little uncooperative during one attempt to fill one cavity and how much work needed to be done, the dentist recommended that he be put under general anesthesia to have the work done. He and I got up early this morning and drove to the local Children's Hospital to check in at 6:30 a.m. J.D. got to wear cool hospital pajamas:
He also got to pick a flavor of sleeping gas (it only took 3 breaths of it to put him completely out) and a car to drive to the surgery room.
The procedure went well, but he was quite groggy for a while afterwards. He got to eat popsicles and watch cartoons while he finished waking up so we could go home.
We finally got home just after noon and he relaxed for a while, but was back to his normal self by mid-afternoon. (I was not, since I didn't get a nap until Jim got home from work.) I didn't get a picture of the inside of his mouth to show you (with his two silver crowns--the dentist called them transformer teeth) because he would barely let me look inside, let alone take a picture.
Hopefully the other kids won't need so much dental intervention on their baby teeth (at such a large expense!). We have ramped up our brushing/flossing regime, but we also have the lovely small mouth/big teeth genes from our forebearers to thank as well. So, kids--brush your teeth!
5 comments:
Ugh. What fun. Take heart, though. I did my best to finagle out of brushing my teeth when I was a kid. Then, when I had something like 5 cavities (8?), and my mom got pretty mad at me for how much it was going to cost, I changed. Now I'm a thorough, dedicated teeth brusher. Maybe JD will be the same after this experience.
Oh, not fun! My niece had to have caps on most of her baby teeth because she had "bottle rot". Since then we have tried to be really diligent about brushing our kid's teeth and not putting them to bed with bottles and such. I'm glad I learned my lesson from my sister's kid and not my own :) j/k! What a nice sister, huh!? By the way, how are you feeling?
Poor little dude!!! But hopefully the hospital catering to the kids made it bearable. I am nervous about extensive dental work for kids - what a nightmare!!! It is sometimes "like pulling teeth" to get my kids to brush.
My mom is a dental hygientist, so we grew up with a strict dental regiment. Poor kid! I definitely hope the rest of them don't have to go through that.
Holy smokes, I thought Cooper's four two fillings were bad. His teeth are so close together it's even hard to get floss in there. I hope his mouth is feeling better!
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