elsie's unfortunate dentist visit

Confession.  Ryann is nearly 4.5 years old, and she has never been to the dentist.  I don't know why I keep putting it off, I just have never made her an appointment.  Major mom fail.  I'm completely aware.  I don't need anyone to tell me how horrible that is.  Moving on.  Elsie is the one who pushed us to make our first pediatric dentist trip, but unfortunately it wasn't for a regular check-up or cleaning.

On Thursday the girls and I met up with a friend at their neighborhood pool.  With school in session now, we had the place to ourselves.  It was great.  The girls all played in the pool, we brought our lunch, I had some adult conversation.  Winning all around, right?  Well while we were getting ready to go, all the girls were laying on their towels drying off, so naturally I decided to take a picture.  I was trying to convince them to look at me, so in true toddler fashion Elsie stood up and walked away.  Just walked, not ran, for the record.  I continued to take a picture of Ryann and Kamryn, but before I could even press the button, Elsie tripped.

She fell inches before reaching a lounge chair, so despite putting her arms out to catch herself, she took the brunt of the impact on her mouth, directly on the end support of the chair.  Her hands slipped just underneath the chair.  I quickly scooped her up and saw blood pooling on her lip.  I could clearly see two teeth marks on her bottom lip so I cuddled her while holding a towel over the wound to try and stop the bleeding.  After just a little while that mark didn't seem to be bleeding all that much, but E was still spitting out a fair amount of blood and screaming.  I opened her mouth and pulled back her lips to get a better look inside her mouth, and that is when I noticed her teeth didn't look right.

I started to panic on the inside, while trying to keep it together and quickly pack up our things.  Thankfully Chris's morning clinic had been cancelled, I had a text message saying he was at home.  I called him and told him that Elsie had fallen and I needed him to look at it.  Basically, don't even think of leaving for your afternoon until I get home.  Elsie continued to cry and spit out blood.  I felt so bad for her.  She went in and out of sleep during the 15 minute ride home, screaming every time she woke up.  When we got home I laid her down on her changing pad so Chris could take a look.  He confirmed what I already knew, her teeth had been pushed up into her gums.  He said it was worse than he thought it was going to be.

After giving Elsie a dose of Tylenol I called our pedi's office, they told me a nurse would call me back.  Chris went to work searching for a pediatric dentist to call.  In the meantime I sat with Elsie in her room and she passed out.  Chris ended up finding a dentist close by that said yes we needed to bring her in, they'd work her in when we got there.

We let Elsie sleep for about 20 minutes before loading everyone in the car.  After this point Elsie did great.  The Tylenol must have kicked in because she didn't really cry much for the rest of the afternoon (until she got so incredibly tired from only getting a 20 minute nap).  When we got to the dentist we were quickly called back.  They did a quick exam of her mouth and took an x-ray.  The image showed a better outcome than I was expecting.  Her right tooth had barely moved up at all (and honestly I can't tell much of a difference in that one now).  The left had shifted the most, moving up and twisting sideways a bit.  But her permanent tooth buds were still in line with each other and didn't seem to have been disturbed.  He noted there is a possibility of her teeth turning grey because of the bruising that occurred in the gums, and something about the blood, but otherwise she should be just fine.  He said that if he attempted to reposition the tooth there was a good chance it would just fall out.  So now she's left with this...

Oh that makes me so sad.  I know it is just a tooth, and eventually it will fall out and her permanent teeth will come in, and their are always braces to straighten those.  But we've spent a little time mourning the loss of her old smile.  And really seeing it just makes me cringe thinking of how much it must have hurt for her teeth to get shoved up like that.

Overall she has done great.  She is on antibiotics just in case any bacteria was shoved up in to her gums with her teeth.  And occasionally she has said her mouth hurts, so we've given her Tylenol.  But she hasn't complained at all today.  We've also avoided any harder foods, just because I don't know, I'd think her teeth would still be sore?  It sounded like a good idea.  A little bit of exploration on google gives me hope that her tooth might come back down in to place, but I don't know if it will since it is so crooked.  I'm just glad she didn't get hurt any worse.