The Tooth Drama

So the front view doesn't make it look that bad. I guess that helps the mommy guilt a little. Poor baby, if you even got close to his mouth, he'd flinch like you were gonna hit him.











The side view really shows how wide-spread the infection was. The big purplish bruise looking thing is all the infection build-up in the gums and cheek. He was so miserable. I just wanted to cry.

On Wednesday, Ty took him to the specialist to do the pulpotomy and I stayed home at the kids because I was sure I would ring somebody's neck and then be worried about Zach the whole time. (The office had called earlier in the day to tell me that because they hadn't run our insurance sooner, the office had closed and they couldn't verify whether we had insurance coverage or not, so the would have to re-schedule for the next day or so. Do you SEE my baby's face? That didn't fly with me! Anyway...) After they had been gone a little over an hour, Ty calls to tell me they are on the way home. This isn't good because it takes 45 minutes just to get to the office across town! Well, the specialist took one look at poor Zach's mouth and was instantly angry with the dentist who had attempted to "repair" it the first time. She said, for the first thing, he shouldn't have even tried to numb the area because all that infection in like Pac-Man and just gobbles up the anesthetic before it could do any work. That's why he couldn't get numb. Second, when a tooth is that infected at Zach's age, the best course is to just extract the tooth. It was the one covering his 6 year old molar anyway, so it's not like he'll be toothless long. Then she continued that the other 3 didn't need the pulpotomy and probably not the extraction. Their infection was largely related to the first tooth's infection and will probably go away now that he's had a full run of antibiotics and once the offending tooth was removed. So she rescheduled to Saturday when he was done with the antibiotics. We went in on Saturday and with very little trouble, we had the tooth extracted. Since then, the swelling is completely gone, and he only complains about tenderness when he's really tired! Per the specialist's order, we are waiting till we get to Idaho to get the others taken care of, if there is anything to take care of. She thought several of the "cavities" were actually only "hot spots" that could be potentially healed with brushing and a good fluoride rinse. *Fingers crossed!*