It's been another interesting week here in family-of-four-and-a-little-dog land. My To Do list doesn't seem to be shrinking and checking items off of it was put on hold last week with a call from Leighton's school.
It starts thankfully with "Leighton is fine." but then finishes with "Her arms got stuck taking off her coat and she fell and bumped her tooth. It was bleeding, but she's fine now."
I get weekly calls about this or that fall or a small bump on the head and I always ask if I should pick her up. The answer is always "No". This time, teacher said "I'll call you after lunch to make sure the tooth isn't bothering her." I agreed. After lunch, teacher told me, "You may want to take her to a doctor."
I got in the car and called Yummy Dental to make an appointment.
During pickup, I knelt down to help Leighton with her coat and said, "Let Mama see your teeth." I said this with a smile that I'd rehearsed in the car because I didn't want to appear thrown by any injury to her teeny pearls - no matter how gruesome.
SIDEBAR: My mom ALWAYS wore this look of equal parts concern and fear mixed with a dash of horror when inspecting any damage I may have done to myself . It was squinty, as though she had trouble looking at me and not feeling my pain while clairvoyantly picturing any procedure involved in fixing the situation.
Dental work was no exception. When I lost half of a brand new, adult, front tooth playing catcher without a mask in fourth grade, she had to go to bed at three PM. The "baseball bat incident" was traumatic for everyone. I still need three Valium to get through a cleaning.
Incidentally, she was also an agressive throat-gland checker (I was a strep carrier until my tonsillectomy) and frequently made sure I could touch my chin to my chest, thus clearing me of meningitis every time I caught a cold. I'm alive, so I'm not complaining. I just don't want to worry my kids unnecessarily if I can avoid making that face.
I'm not sure if I was successful. It felt like I was smiling calmly, but I really can't be certain.
Lei's upper lip was obviously swollen and I couldn't tell if it was her lip, gums or both causing the full protrusion. When she flashed me her usual Cheshire Cat grin, I was instantly drawn to her super swollen gums and the big purple dots all along the gumline of her top TWO teeth. Apparently, with her arms trapped in her coat, she face planted on the hard tile floor. My whole face is throbbing just thinking about it. Had this been explained to me with the proper degree of alarm, I would have picked her up immediately.
Whenever she's careless and slips or bumps her knee or her head I tell her, "Be careful. I made that head. I made that knee. It was a lot of work and I don't care to watch you hurt it." I didn't feel any differently about the teeth. I was nauseous as we buckled into the car and made our way home.
Luckily, Dr. Yum assured us (after several xrays) that the roots are fine and the front-most tooth, which took the brunt of the impact, may turn gray ... or may not ... or may turn back if it does turn gray. Whatever. The adult tooth will be fine, as long as my toddler stops using her fronts to break her fall.
If you have any gnarly tooth stories, this would be the place to share them. Please leave a comment and share your fuss with us!
Oh yea, I get that! 4th grade, a nasty game of bombardment Shawn dives for a ball, another kid dives too...but lands on my head and a broken front adult tooth. 25 some years later...a crown, a root canal, a surgical root canal and I am hoping this does the trick...otherwise I'll have to sign up for hockey again :)
Posted by: SD | Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 04:37 PM