Tooth-o-riffic

Last year, before the military would clear us to PCS (relocate) from Germany, we all had to have dental and medical clearance. T has an IEP and is considered an exceptional family member which boiled down just means we had extra paperwork to do and hoops to jump through.

When I took the kids for their dental exam, the pediatric dentist mentioned that we might want to keep an eye on T's front permanent teeth. He didn't like the way one of his baby teeth looked and the x-ray concerned him too.


T has had two major traumas to his face - the first one was when I hit him in the face with the bathroom door in Germany. That's a long, guilt riddled story for me, and one I won't go into here because it's not the point, and face it - my posts are long enough already.

The second happened when T was jumping on the steps that led from the living room to the kids' play rooms at our house in Germany. I was putting away laundry when it happened, but from what T said, he was jumping on and off the steps, slipped, fell, and smashed his face into either a step or the floor (that part was never clear to me).

The second fall did major damage to his nose and it looks perma-bruised. I'm thinking that it was a combination of those two major falls and all the other minor ones that contributed to the dentists concern.

Both of T's top front baby teeth came out with no problems. The top left one has finally poked through and looks fine.

But tonight, when I was checking T's teeth after he brushed them, there is a bruised looking square where that right top front tooth is underneath the gum.

Crap. And bunch of other curse words.

I asked him if he hit his mouth recently, but T is like R in that short of blood and a missing body part, he tends not to notice injuries after they occur. Which means someone could have hit him (or he could have hit himself) with a baseball bat and he'd still say he couldn't remember anything happening. Sigh.

All I can do now is wait and watch. T will have to go to the dentist asap, which may be this week and may not be for a month, depending on space. I have everything that I can cross crossed in hopes he won't have to have major dental work or surgery. T is not so fond of needles, which is ironic considering that he keeps doing things that require stitches.

So we'll take things one moment at a time and do what needs to be done. With any luck, this won't involve creating a lifetime fear/dislike of dentists.