Dental Nightmares

You know, I've just never been a finatic about my teeth. Sure, I brush my teeth and always have. I even remind my kids to brush their teeth, like my mother did me when I was young. But at the same time, I remember how I despised that dentist my mother took me too and I just couldn't dredge up those memories too constantly. So needless to say, I have no relationship with a dental professional.

There comes a time in your life where you MUST go see one of these mouth torturists though, or find yourself suffering with difficulties beyond your tolerance. And it doesn't help MY feelings to keep it in the back of my mind that my great grandfather died from an abscessed tooth! So once in a while I bite the bullet and become a good parent by taking my kids to have their teeth cleaned.

Not long ago, I decided it was time for Jared to go. A cleaning,...he's THREE! Shouldn't be too much trauma, right? And I was right,...no trauma and Jared got "prizes" for good behavior. NOoooooo problem....except that the hygienist points out all these little weak places in Jared's teeth that need immediate attention. Because he's so young and because there was so much work, they send me to a pedidontist. That sounds smart, doesn't it? (If you know Jared even a little bit, you would agree...that's smart!)

The time comes and we go to the pedidontist. They are going to give Jared some "sleepy juice" so he sleeps through his procedure. They will go in and take care of ALL his troubled spots in his teeth and he'll be done all at once with no bad memories to haunt him. I LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS! We get there, he has had nothing to eat or drink since midnight before (and I might add here that if kiddo can't eat, mom can't eat either. That's really good for the blood sugar, ain't it?) and Tommy and I are mentally prepared to sit with him through this whole ordeal and be a part of it.

They give Jared his "sleepy juice" and we sit and wait. The nurse there with us tells me it won't take too long,...and she loads up her email. I was a little surprised to see her do that, but I took it as a sign that this was normal practice around this place and I didn't worry. Jared got a little wiry though, if that's even a word. He seemed to have the squirmy wiggles like he's never had before! He seemed to be unbalanced and tossed and turned on that chair totally disinterested in the cartoons they had turned on for him. He nearly fell in that hard tile floor 5-6 times! So I moved my chair over beside him so I could hold onto him and keep him from falling. I asked the nurse if him acting drunk was normal and she said "yeah" and goes back to her email. Ok, I'm a little irritated, but at least I'M there holding on to him and watching him, so we'll survive this.

All the sudden, they tell me and Tommy its time to start and they ask us to step out of the room. We were told ahead of time that they would do a more detailed xray of his mouth to make sure they attended to everything, so we assumed that this is why we were stepping out. When they got us to the door of the waiting room, they told us they would come get us when it was done. Without thinking, we went and sat down. Then it occurred to us that we were just escorted out when we had been told before that we could stay in the room with him throughout the whole procedure. Umm,....mom's getting a little warm now!

Two hours later, my blood sugar is dropping like bricks from the sky and I've seen the last Mickey Mouse show I EVER want to see again. So I go ask the receptionist to go find out what the heck is going on with my child and make sure he's ok. She said "I just saw him and he's sleeping just fine, but I'll go check on him for you in a minute when I finish booking this appointment." Ok that didn't sit with me too gently but I figured it was because I'm such a mean nasty hoochie these days. So she got to keep her hair a little longer. I stood right there staring her down though! She finished what she had on her computer screen and got up. When she came back, she tells me he's still sleeping and all is fine, that he's only got another 15 minutes left. *sigh* Ok, so I sit back down and figure I can hold out another 15 minutes. By about 15 minutes, out comes this dentist I didn't know and she's calling me in. I get up and go to the outside door to call Tommy in. This dentist hollers for me to get in the back that SHE'LL get Tommy for me. That's weird, ... how do you take that? Then as I turned around to follow her, she tells me to hurry up because he's crying and calling for me. ALARM! So I take off at high speed to my baby!

I walk into this little room (LITTLE room) with a bed and a chair in it. Jared is laying on the bed, well sorta, no shoes on and has a monitor on his toe and a blood pressure cuff on his leg. He is screaming,....seriously,....SCREAMING "Mommy!" I rush to him and snatch him up to hold him. He kicks his legs over and over so hard the toe monitor comes off and I took off the blood pressure cuff. He settled just a tiny bit,....so I looked at his face and HOLY CRAP! His lip was enormous! Look at this!

Does that look a little FAT TO YOU? And do you see the redness in his cheeks? What about the purplish "mustache" he seems to have? That's not koolaid! This is what I see when I pick up my baby! Yes, in this picture he's showing me his lip, but he's numb as can be, so he's not pushing it out much!

He tells me his lip hurts. The nurse tells me he needs to drink this little juice box she gave him before he leaves and this extra cup of water too. Tommy sits at Jareds feet and I'm at his face. Together we try to help him get a sip of water. Blood fills the cup and Jared sees it. He throws the cup of water and starts screaming again...I'm talking some serious screams here people! This isn't your typical tantrum! There MUST be death involved! Well he can't drink if he can't settle down, so nurses all leave and I sit and rock my little guy while Tommy paces the floor. Nothing is working....for 30 minutes nothing works! That kid has lung power!

After 30 minutes passes, Tommy has heard his child say his mouth hurts for the last time. We didn't see one person come check on us the whole half hour, so he says "let's go! This place is not helping him or us." So I stand up and gather Jareds shoes and socks while wrapping him up in a blanket to carry him out. We get out in the hallway and we are accosted by nurses telling us we can't take him out of the building.

Have you met Tommy? heheheh....nobody tells him that....and now the nurses there know it too :D He informed them not to tell HIM he can't take his child out! So they suddenly want to attend to me and Jared. So I'm shuffled back into the room and get surrounded by people. I don't know what happened to Tommy, but he wasn't in the room with me. It was almost like they wanted us separated to weaken our forces. They come in and tell me that he's not hurting, he just thinks he is. (what kind of crap is that?) I was ill, and I said "well tell me why his lip is so swollen?" The dentist person starts swearing up and down that she didn't use latex gloves and that it wasn't her fault. This should serve as a warning, right? She kept on and wouldn't shut up, so I said "LADY! I'm not accusing you of anything! I saw you get the latex free box of gloves out! I just want to know why his lip is swollen! HELP THIS CHILD!" So she starts trying to look at his mouth. Well Jared doesn't cuss ... much... but he expresses himself quite plainly and that dentist took home a bruise or two ;) She has no answers but is offering me all kinds of drugs for his possible allergic reaction to latex. Dumb woman. I know what a latex allergy in action looks like. This is not one.

Well Tommy comes in and reports to me about a phone call with our attorney and recites our rights to take our child out of this harmful atmosphere at will. So suddenly we've got the attention of the most kind and polite nurses you ever saw. They take me and Jared into a different room and have ME lay down and let him lay on my chest. He finally wore himself out and fell asleep. In that position, I could see that he'd bitten his lip pretty badly and chunks of meat were missing. No wonder he said it hurts,...IT DID! That's where the blood came from! Shortly after, I got up and Tommy and I left...with them not having the nerve to ask me to schedule the second round of this (yeah that's right, they didn't get it all 100% finished! His front teeth are still thin and degenerative, needing work done). As we were leaving, they tell me he won't remember any of this. That's the good thing about "sleepy juice", it has an amnesia side effect.

On our way home, Jared starts telling me what the dental professionals were saying while he was supposedly asleep. I hate those people.