Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Tooth!

This month has been a bit of a blur.  And the culprit of a lot of that "missing time" has been a tooth!  Nicole's chipped tooth to be exact.  You might remember that a year ago she fell and chipped her front tooth.  Well a year later, it started to abcess and the dentist and oral surgeon both agreed it was time for it to come out!  We'd been going in every 3 months to watch it once we realized it had started to bother her on occasions.  And the time came.  The surgery was planned , then changed and finally the decided to have her tooth removed at Scottish Rite Children's hospital.  I was a bit freaked out about why the outpatient facility was nixed and they felt so strongly that they wanted it done at the main hospital - but I also knew that meant Nicole would be very well taken care of.  So, we headed to the hospital...

 My Kindle fire (LOVE IT) was the best remedy for keeping a little girl calm and occupied.
 She started to get a little woozy after her medicine....
 and more woozy... finally had to lay down...
 They they wheeled her off to surgery.  The surgeon came in to give me Nicole's tooth... OH MY GOSH!  I'm sooooo glad they did this in the hospital.  This picture really doesn't do it justice for the size - but it's over an inch long.  They had to put in 2 stitches to close it all up.  But she was a trooper and did great.
 After the surgery the "wake up" was agonizing - she spent about 20 minutes in hysterics and fighting mad and confused.  I finally got her to fall asleep again and after a 45 minute nap she woke up silly, goofy, yet happy and ready to go home.

A week later, she got a great report from the follow up with the surgeon.  And she's finally started to act 100% herself again - she's finally figured out how to eat with a hole - and has started smiling again.  A cute snaggle-tooth smile, if I do say so myself.

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