a day at the dentist

Yesterday was dentist day.

I didn't realize when I scheduled Heather's appointment that Greg had a cleaning the same morning ~ different dentists, different sides of town. Maybe I should have looked at my calendar, huh?

Nevertheless, the timing worked out fine.

Greg has to have two fillings replaced next week. Good grief.

Heather's was the big appointment of the day. The dentist has been talking about this for a couple of years now, but kept telling us to wait and see if the situation resolved itself. Which I guess sometimes it does. In December we were told it was time, but we wanted to wait until summer. Heather needed a frenectomy. She had too much tissue connecting her upper lip to her gums.

Find a mirror and check yours out. I'll wait.

She also had extra tissue between her two front teeth at the gum line. This has caused her to have a significant gap between her two front teeth and could cause future adult teeth to be crowded.

Since she is a child, the dentist begged for recommended a conscious sedation. Stephanie had this once when she was about 3 when she had to have some silver caps done. The experience at the dentist's office was not bad, but she wigged out on me at home. Bad. It was a good thing I had taken Heather to the sitter that day.

Because of my previous experience, I scheduled it for a Tuesday and made Greg go with me. Heather was a little anxious about the procedure and she was hungry because of the required fast. But when she got the sleepy shot, she was drowsy within seconds and giggly. That made it much easier for her to go into the procedure room without me ~ we weren't allowed to watch.

Probably a good thing.

The procedure didn't take long & the dentist brought her into the recovery room to begin our wait for her to fully wake up and be ready for the ride home. Let me tell you, it was a good thing Greg was there. It was a strange sight to see her eyes open at about half mast, but she was not seeing, not awake really.

But then.

She started screaming as she was coming to. Unconsolable screaming. She had double vision still and was unable to make her mouth say what her mind wanted. This scared her even more I think. She made strange noises and did strange things with her mouth. Greg wanted me to video her. I gave him a dirty look and found some of her favorite "sweet music" on his phone to help calm her down. To be honest, for a brief moment I was scared silly that something went wrong and this behavior was permanent.

As she became more conscious, it alternately heart-breaking and hilarious. She said some really funny things. She was pretty l~o~o~p~y still. She asked numerous times how she got there. She asked why we were in my brother's living room. Then she wanted to know how that was possible when he lives in a different state. She wanted to know why we were in our neighbor's living room, then the library. She wanted to know who gave her the "lame-o" toy that came out of the procedure room with her. She tried to play with said lame-o toy. She wanted to know if she cried during the procedure. She told us that she didn't feel anything during the procedure. She demanded to get up and walk many times. She demanded to go home many times. She would be calm, then she'd freak out all over again. She told us she loved us frequently and wanted many kisses. It was serious work calming this child down.

During all of this, she still bled in her mouth quite a bit and her lips became a wet/caked dry bloody mess ~ which made the kisses she wanted pretty tricky. When she was much more awake and very calm we asked her if we could clean her up. She wouldn't let us do it until she saw what her lips looked like. The front office lady obliged her with a hand mirror and a giggle. I told her we do our best to be entertaining to those around us (trying to make up for that screaming).

She also told us that she wished she was more awake during the procedure so she could see it. That's Heather ~ interested in the procedure even if it's a little gross. She was not happy that I put a kibosh on Greg's suggestion of videoing her earlier antics. Later when Stephanie got home, she was not happy about the lack of video evidence. I told Greg maybe we should have shot some footage so when she is a teenager we can show it to her to scare her out of drugs for sure. So maybe the veto of the video was not the smartest idea.

We spent the rest of the afternoon with a more normal child, pampering her with chicken noodle soup and ice cream, taking naps, and watching t.v.

Today she reports her pain as a zero (on a 1 - 10 scale) unless she laughs (which pulls at the incision) in which case it's a half or 1. We are trying really hard not to make her laugh, but with comedian parents she's sorta doomed. Her lip is puffy. She is still enjoying some indulgent ice cream, pudding, and soup. We just made some jello. We are taking it easy today. No need to get out of our jammies.

She will probably go with Greg to the dentist next week and hold his hand during his procedures. She's supportive like that.