Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Little Bear's Lost Tooth

Most of you have already heard the story, but I will tell it again for anyone who hasn't.
Monday evening we were out hanging in our driveway talking to the neighbors. Neighbors all went home and Aaron took off on his bike with Aidan and Ella on their bike and trike. They just went to the end of our street and turned around to come back. On the way back Ella caught her foot on the wheel of her no pedal radio flyer trike. Fell forward over the handlebars hitting her face on the sidewalk. Aaron drops his bike and picks her up to bring her back home. Get him a towel to help stop the bleeding. Mommy then takes over because daddy doesn't like the blood or seeing his little girl hurting. I take a look inside her mouth and was horrified to see the tooth knocked loose.

Make Aaron call first nurse to figure out what we should do. We have no dentist down here yet, and no pediatrician down here yet. First Nurse tells us to just pull it out so she doesn't choke on it while she sleeps. I want a different opinion so we figure out where urgent care is down here. I take her over to Mercy Urgent Care. Doctor is not helpful at all. Barely looks her over to make sure she is okay, tells me they will call at pediatric dentist in the morning and get us an appointment. I spend the rest of the evening feeling sick to my stomach wondering if there was something more I could have done to save her tooth and trying to get Ella, who is now overtired, mouth hurting, and hungry but unable to chew anything or drink much, to go to sleep. Finally around 10:30 she gives in and passes out.

Aaron sees that his dentist opens at 7:30 so calls them to see if they will see a 2 yr old with a loose tooth. They sad they will see her at 8:40. So Aaron stays home with the other two and I take Ella to the dentist. They were sooooo nice to her and she was soooooo brave! Hopefully this will not scar her experience of the dentist forever! They took a look and said that the tooth will indeed need to come out. They put a little numbing stuff on her gum, then gave her a shot of some other numbing stuff. Then pulled the tooth. She squirmed and whimpered just a little when the needle when it and when they pulled the tooth. The hygienist and dentist were very impressed with how brave a little girl she was.

She sat on my lap and I held the gauze while we waited for it to stop bleeding. She got to go pick out a prize from their treasure chest. They told her she could pick one out to take home to brother too. She picked a pretty silver bracelet for herself and a dinosaur for Aidan.

We stopped at Target on the way home and stocked up on popsicles, pudding, ice cream and yogurt, anything soft and cold that she likes to make sure she had something she could eat. I am still a little nervous about the other top front tooth. I don't think it is very loose, but the dentist wants to see her next Tuesday to make sure it is tightened back up in its socket. So I guess I am just trying to be cautious with what she is eating and not giving her things she needs to bite off with her front teeth.

Here is Ella right before we went to the dentist:

And then right before bed tonight:



She has been such a trooper! She is not phased even a little. I don't even think she understands what happened. She just saw her pictures that are in this post and asked what was under her nose. And before bed I remembered to go grab my old tooth fairy pillow and put her tooth in it and tried to explain the tooth fairy to our 2 1/2 year old.

So we move on, hope that the other front tooth holds tight and figure out the going rate from the tooth fairy for a tooth!
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2 comments:

roduns said...

Pretty sure that would be traumatic for me as a mommy. She's a tough little bear!

Rikki Kreger said...

My oldest son had to have a tooth removed when he was 2 (due to daredevil stunts) and it was traumatic for us parents but not so much for him. I worried about all the same things (like your above post) but we've survived. And in Kindergarten, other kids envied his lost tooth since that becomes all important!