Mishap

Yesterday when I left the computer I was headed to my youngest son's room to hang a baseball diamond shadow box that would house 37 baseballs. This is phase one of the room organization and purge. This large shadow box will not hold all the baseballs he has, hence the purge.

As I was heading to his bedroom, my daughter asked me to pull her tooth. The evening before we had gone to a baseball game with a group of Doug's friends. On the way there she was chewing on a Now Or Later candy. All of a sudden she says the Now Or Later made her tooth loose and it's bleeding. The passenger passed her a napkin and all was well. We had a great time at the game. Unbeknown to us it was free hot dog and peanuts night. In addition to that one of Doug's friend's had taught the person selling tickets at the gate and the former student gave us (nine of us) free tickets behind the plate. So we had a great evening and forgot all about the tooth.

Now back to the tooth. This is the loose tooth from the Now or Later. I take my daughter into my office (the bedroom), have her lay back on my dental chair (the bed with pillows propped under her) and have her open wide. As I look in her mouth and wiggle her tooth, I see that it is not just loose but broken. It is cracked and part of the tooth has pulled away from the rest of the tooth. I don't know if this is a baby tooth or not. My vast dental training didn't cover this. I'm praying it's not an adult tooth. I'm not touching this situation. I leave my patient and go report to her dad. I get Doug and whisper to him what is going on with the tooth. He tells me to call the dentist (the real dentist).

After a call to the real dentist office we head over there. We had to wait until the lunch hour before the dentist could see her. From her last set of x-rays the doctor and hygienist can tell that the tooth is a baby tooth and her adult tooth is ready to come in. So they are just going to pull the tooth. Now they have the good stuff, numbing gel and Novocaine to assist them. I have told the receptionist, when I called, that her tooth was broken. I told one of the hygienists that the receptionist had me speak to that her tooth was broken. When we move from the waiting room to the patient treatment room I tell that hygienist that her tooth is broken. She explains that the adult tooth puts pressure on the baby tooth and the baby tooth's roots are dissolving and when a person bites down on something hard the baby tooth may crack. Doug described it as being between a rock and a hard place.

In comes the doctor and my daughter proceeds to burst into tears and claims that the tooth doesn't hurt or bother her. I tell him we are getting it pulled anyway, since the tooth is broken and will just cause her problems. I calm her down. He gives her the shots and leaves the room. (I'm guessing to have a stiff drink.) He returns after the Novocaine kicks in and quickly pulls out the tooth. Then he says there's a piece over here, referring to the other broken piece. I'm thinking I've only said that the tooth was broken four times, hello. Unfortunately the other piece is stuck to the gum, so he has to dig a bit to get it out. That part was a bit uncomfortable for the girl.

All ended up well. Two hours of closed captioned CNN in the waiting room. No damaged permanent tooth and a broken baby tooth for the tooth fairy. Unfortunately the tooth fairy didn't get the tooth only the plastic tooth necklace because the girl was closely inspecting the tooth and dropped it. After her brother and I thoroughly searched the chair she was in and the floor we gave up and convinced her to put the plastic tooth case in her tooth fairy pillow.