Friday, January 9, 2009

We're on the No Cavi-Tree!


We have a Sponge Bob book about going to the dentist and he wants to be on the No Cavi-tree. So does Patrick, but Patrick had never been to the dentist. I believe that initially he had some cavities, but did get on the No Cavi-Tree the next time. Behold, No Cavities!

So, we are cavity free. We were also told that we have no periodontal disease, no gingivitis and that we take excellent care of our teeth. That's good to know. I thought we had been doing a good job, but you always get a little nervous when it comes right down to it. Especially since K- seems to have been affected by her in utero drug exposure in the areas of teeth and immunity. We're working on the teeth. The immunity seems to be much better than it was, too.

But, this brings us to the next thing. Poor kid had to have her tooth re-filled-- for the 5th time. Now, before you think that we go to some back alley hack, our dentist is a wonderful, kind and very gentle man. When he first put the filling in, it popped out twice while she was in the chair. Seems as though her saliva kept sneaking in and under the filling. Then, a week after filling number 3 had held, it decided to take a hike down her digestive tract. We had it re-filled, at no additional charge to us, and a few weeks later it seemed to be slightly pulling way from the tooth. It held all the way up to today, but I had sent him a picture of said tooth along with the payment of our bill. At that time, gas was $4.00 per gallon and a 50 mile round trip didn't seem that appealing if we didn't need to make it. So, when we were in today, it was determined that for a 5th time, we needed to re-fill that tooth. I asked Dr. Rick if there was any way that we could tend to that today while we were already out there. Such a nice man, he said yes. He realized that making an additional drive was insane and that K- was an absolute ANGEL today and we needed to keep it going. I knew that if I had to tell her that we needed to come back for a filling that all the love for Dr. Rick that day would be lost.

You know what my baby did? She asked that I not go in with her. Grant you, the office is sub-divided into 4 smaller "stalls" so it really isn't that large, but she asked me not to go in. She was doing it on her own. I told her okay, gave her a kiss and hug and sent her off to the big chair. She is generally pretty clingy when it comes to things like that and considering that I had to practically pry her off of my leg when we first came in, I was pretty proud that she had become that comfortable. Oh, don't think for a minute that I abandon her. I stood right around the corner and well within eye shot of everything going on. They knew that I was there and she did not. She did cry when they gave her the shot, but in a whimpering kind of way. The hygienist looked at me with such sad eyes for K-, but kiddo held in there. In the end, she wasn't too fond of opening her mouth for the actual filling, and they did have to talk her into understanding that it wasn't going to hurt one bit.

You know what? She did great! Such a big girl, she is.

You wanna know something else? That popping filling problem? Apparently K- has one doozy of a strong overbite on that particular tooth, which is what caused the filling to come away from the tooth. We're trying another filling and we'll see what we have to do after that.

In the meantime, we'll take no cavities and good gum health as a great thing!

1 comment:

Jamie said...

Excellent news as far as the No cavities go. At least the filling thing wasn't too bad. What a big she she is becoming too... you must be a proud Mama!

I hate the dentist and don't go...I've been tortured too many times by dentists.