The Tooth Fairy is Coming a Bit Early...

The last 24 hours have been an adventure. I received a phone call at about 4 o'clock yesterday from the preschool. Katherine fell while she was playing outside and chipped her front tooth and they said the chip was pretty significant. Thankfully she seemed to be in no pain, not even really aware that she had done anything. After taking a deep breath, I thanked them for the update and called Ted to let him know what was going on. We needed to get a hold of a dentist to find out what to do next.

Of course, no dentist is open on Fridays. We were lucky enough to get a hold of Ted's dentist in town who was more than happy to take a quick look at it that evening. At first he said that if she doesn't appear to be in pain then there's not much to do but we felt better having him look at the tooth, just to be on the safe side. Well, one look at the tooth and he immediately referred us to a pediatric dentist. There appeared to be damage to the nerve and the tooth pulp was exposed. She needed to see a specialist for children her age. So we headed home and called the pediatric dentist who gave us some bad news. The most likely treatment for the tooth would be extraction since there was nerve damage. She said she would know more when she had a look at it in the morning but she wanted to prepare us for what would most likely be the outcome. Not the news I wanted to hear, especially one week before she was due to be a flower girl in a wedding. I was near tears, my baby's beautiful smile was about to change. Needless to say it was a long night for Ted and I (Katherine was clueless and quite chipper, I might add). I spent most of the night tossing and turning.

We arrived at the pediatric dentist at 9am the next morning. The office was really cool and had a fish/Finding Nemo theme to it (you need to check out the pics on their website). And they turned on all of the lights and everything for Katherine, even Radio Disney was going. She was quite impressed. After a quick X-ray the dentist confirmed what she thought was the case, the damage to the tooth was too great to save it. While the option was on the table to try to repair the damage, it involved sedation, root canals, and crowns; something she did not recommend and something Ted and I were not willing to put a two year old through. She also said that even if they did manage to save the tooth, the long term prognosis for it was not good and the chance for future infection was quite high (meaning the tooth would end up getting pulled anyway). And future infection was dangerous because it could cause damage to the developing adult tooth (which thankfully appeared to be perfectly fine). The most important thing was to ensure that the permanent tooth was safe and to do that the baby tooth needed to be pulled. After a brief overview of the procedure, Ted and I took a deep breath and agreed to go ahead. We were given the option of sitting in the room while they performed the procedure but decided it would be too upsetting for all involved and chose to wait in the waiting area. So after giving our girl a quick kiss we gathered ourselves up to wait up front. Ten minutes later, Ms K. emerged, with special smile.She'll have that special smile for at least the next 3 years, probably longer. There is the option of having a partial made for her for cosmetic reasons but right now she is too young for that, we'll cross that bridge later. The instructions for the rest of the day were to rest, soft foods, Tylenol and no drinking through straws or sippy cups. Unfortunately, Katherine isn't going down for nap, not for lack of effort on our part. We can tell she's exhausted (as are we) but she slept in the car and we all know what that means. Part of the problem is that she desperately wants her pacifier to help her go to sleep and that is a no no right now. The gums need to heal. It's probably cold turkey on the pacifier from now on. Eventually she will tire out and fall asleep, we just have to get through today.

Ted and I are spent, physically and emotionally. We've congratulated ourselves on getting through the first real emergency, we know this won't be the last. We're thankful that, while the outcome is not what we hoped for, it could have been much worse. So we'll count our blessings and try to get some rest. And we'll give Ms K. an early introduction to the Tooth Fairy...