Poor Davis

If you follow me on FaceBook, you have undoubtedly seen all of my posts about Davis' teeth issues but I thought I'd document them here as well. We had a few friends over on Memorial Day so we heated up the pool for the first swim of the year. Everyone was having such a good time that we let Davis stay up much later than normal. Davis was walking along the bench in the pool but because it was dark (we had the pool light on but it does not put out a ton of light), Davis did not see when the bench ended and he hit his mouth on the side of the pool. Chris and I heard Davis crying (actually screaming) and saw our friend pulling him out of the pool. I rushed to him and there was blood everywhere. We thought he had just busted his lip so we headed inside to get some ice. Once we were inside, I saw the damage. His top front two teeth were extremely lose as was the tooth next to it. The canine tooth on the top looked chipped. Poor kid didn't want any tylenol or anything for pain (but was able to eat a cookie to make himself feel better).

The next morning, we went to school and I left a message for our dentist. Our regular denstist office was closed for continuing education so the pediatric dentist that was covering called and told us to come in to make sure there was no danger. I picked Davis up from school early and we headed to the dentist. She thought we'd have to pull at least two teeth and maybe up to four but wanted us to follow up with our regular dentist in a few days once the swelling went down. We did that on Friday and the final verdict is that they think he might have broken his jaw but it is settling back in place. It was pretty clear that his front two teeth would need to come out. We were hoping to save the other two. The X-ray showed that the tooth next to the front teeth was split (the tooth split from the roots) so it would have to come out too. The canine tooth is actually not chipped but was pushed up into his bone. We are just hoping that it did not get too close to the tooth bed of the permanent tooth. If it did get too close, it might stop development of the permanent tooth. We are going to leave the canine in and monitor it. They hope that over time that it will start to drop back down.

We tried to go ahead with the extraction on Friday while we were in the office. Davis was doing great until the dentist gave him the first novocaine shot. After that, he started screaming and crying so we put an end to the work. We didn't want his first real dental experience to be traumatic so we rescheduled for June 10 when we'll do the extractions under conscious sedation. I am nervous about him taking the drug but they tell me that it is really mild and kids typically come out of it pretty quickly. He will still be awake but the drug makes them loopy and also has the effect of making them not remember what is happening.

Poor kid will be without his front two teeth for 6 - 8 months (the permanent teeth are there but not too close) and without the tooth next to that for about 2 years (kids usually don't lose that baby tooth until they are 8 - 9). Since the canine is pushed up into the bone and you can only see a small part of it now, he will look like he is missing all 4 teeth. He thinks it will be cool (and is excited that the tooth fairy brings extra money when kids have to get teeth pulled at the dentist) but we are just hoping that he does not get teased when he starts kindergarten next year.

I took some pictures of his beat up mouth and will post them along with pictures of the missing teeth after the procedure next week. Please pray that the procedure goes smoothly and that he does not have any sort of reaction to the drugs.