The Tooth Saga

Two weeks ago, on Saturday night, I brushed Eli's teeth before bed.  I'm a pretty detailed brusher, and I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.  On Sunday morning we were rushed, as usual, and I put toothpaste on the toothbrush and let Eli do his own thing.  Eli went to the nursery at church.  Picking him up was uneventful.  We got home, ate lunch, and then the protesting of the afternoon nap began.  In mid-whine I happened to look in his mouth, and I was shocked to see a broken tooth, and I was even more shocked when I could see blood in it.

This looks like one of many terrible stock photos I looked at on all kinds of dental websites trying to figure out what to do for Eli.

I have no idea how or when this happened.  Of course it was the weekend, and he didn't seem to be in pain, so I waited until Monday to start making calls.  Unfortunately, Monday was Columbus Day, and apparently many dentists, or at least the ones that will accept our cheap-o military insurance, were closed.  So Tuesday rolled around, and I got Eli into a pediatric dentist near our house.

It's a really long story, but the only option this dentist wanted was basically a root canal and crown placement under general anesthesia with a breathing tube all placed by a nurse anesthestist in his office.  Then there would be clear liquid diet for 24 hours, and then soft foods for two days, and all kinds of pain killers.  Oh, and I was going to have to go back to work in order to finance the whole deal.  Not really, but almost.

I ended up getting a second opinion with another dentist who said she would also do general anesthesia for the procedure, but she would only do it in a hospital with an anesthesiologist.  Then she talked about extraction.  She said in the long term, it will make very little difference whether or not Eli keeps this tooth.  Extraction is traumatic, but she said she could probably make him loopy and the whole thing would take ten minutes.  He should be back to himself by lunch time.

After a lot of back and forth, we've decided to have it pulled.  As much as I would love for him to have all his teeth, I have had to put my children under general anesthesia waaaaay more than I ever wanted, and it's not something I take lightly.  Not to mention, there's the whole almost needing a second income to finance the whole thing and all the recovery drama.  I'm hoping to get it taken care of this week, so wish us luck.  It will not be fun, but hopefully it will be quick, and then we can just forget the whole thing ever happened.

Once I put my two year old through a tooth extraction I think it's going to be time to face the music and finally get the old wisdom teeth removed.  Then again, maybe I can put it off a little while longer.